Cherrygrove's Winter Knights
by Copper Hikari
Summary: When thirteen-year-old Aubrey went into Cherrygrove City that morning, all she expected was a small breakfast and a nice walk. Meeting a lost Chikorita, helping out a mysterious girl, and saving an entire nation from an overseas crime syndicate wasn't exactly part of the plan.
1. I: I'm not a Trainer

Cherrygrove's Winter Knights

…

- I'm not a Trainer

The sleepy, chilly, and otherwise entirely-ordinary Wednesday began on a less-than-sunny note. Aubrey, age thirteen and three months, two weeks and two days, opened the door to her family's barren refrigerator, closed it, and opened it again, hoping desperately for something delicious to appear. There was food in the fridge _per se_, but nothing actually edible from a human perspective. Aubrey closed the fridge door for a distressing third time, just before the Pokemon food started to look appetizing.

Aubrey's mother and father ran the Pokemon Day Care, which they had opened outside of New Bark Town in response to its recent popularity. Of course, Mom and Dad wound up spending most of their recent paychecks on said Pokemon chow in order to keep the business going. It was fairly obvious that Aubrey's parents had expected their business to only be a minor success; when their profits soared as several high-level trainers left their Pokemon for weeks at a time, Aubrey's parents found themselves at a loss for words.

A town has one trainer that conquers the Pokemon League and goes to Kanto, and suddenly it's the must-see culture center in the nation. Who knew?

It was a loss for words and, as Aubrey quickly caught on, a loss of free time. Her parents found themselves working at the Day Care Center all day and often long into the night; if they did come home, they would be up again before sunrise to start the day all over again. Still, since it was winter vacation, Aubrey didn't mind being left to her own devices. Spending her free time alone was better than spending it in the Day Care with her parents; the last time she submitted to that, she was forced the front desk for eight hours a day. Midway through the ordeal, Aubrey was certain that she'd died and gone to Purgatory.

With a hungry hand, Aubrey dug into the 'in case of emergencies' jar on the kitchen countertop. Having no human food in the house _definitely_ constituted and emergency. She found just enough money to buy breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the day; she could as her parents for grocery money and make a full shopping trip tomorrow. Aubrey didn't mind having to go out on her own; part of running a Day Care was having to be familiar with the routes that trainers frequented. Cherrygrove City was a good hour walk away, and while New Bark Town was only barely closer, the tourist trap stores would drain her wallet dry. Aubrey knew herself; resisting a used bookstore or a hip outdoor mall was impossible in the Aubrey playbook.

Wearing the white parka her father had given her two winters ago and the blue scarf her grandmother made when she visited last spring, Aubrey set out in search of breakfast. She locked the door behind her, clutched her emergency dollar bills in her gloved fist, and trudged down the snowy path in her older sister's hand-me-down boots.

Thankfully, Aubrey was born and raised in this often-snowy part of the Johto region. The winter wonderland of her backyard had warmed her spirits on more than one occasion. She knew the roads by heart, come rain or snow or flawless shine. Aubrey walked along the edges of the paved roads, arms out on either side to balance. It was easy enough to keep herself steady in the more temperate seasons, but in wintertime, when she could easily be mistaken for a snowman due to her parka jacket, balance was no easy feat.

After a burst of icy wind from seemingly every direction at once, Aubrey fell from the road's edge, catching herself gracefully and swinging her arms merrily. A mahogany curl spilled out from her stocking cap, but so long as it didn't start to collect melting water, she didn't mind.

She didn't mind this entire morning, when she got down to thinking about it. Sure, her stomach was in a mood, but Aubrey had cleaned both hers _and_ her father's plate the previous night anyway. If she were honest with herself, then she would realize that this was an excuse to get out of the house and enjoy the fleeting weeks of winter before spring melted it away for another year.

In fact, Aubrey was so caught up in enjoying the blinding white sheets of snow that she didn't notice her company until halfway into the journey.

In the Chikorita's defense, it hadn't done much to warrant any attention. It had simply woken up in the dry patch of grass that it collapsed in the night before, shook off the snow from the leaf atop its head, and glimpsed a young girl walking with her arms stretched out all funny-like just up the road. And the Chikorita, with nothing else to do, followed along. The girl didn't seem to notice anyway.

That is, until a rude boy with a backwards hat, a stubbly face, and a college sweater all but announced the Chikorita's presence via loudspeaker.

"My name's Lincoln," the boy said with overflowing confidence, "and I challenge you to a Pokemon battle!"

Aubrey paused and looked around, wondering to whom this college-aged boy was talking to.

"Do you see anybody else here?" Lincoln shouted briskly. There was no need to be rude; the two of them were standing barely ten feet apart. Aubrey had seen the older boy coming down the road a long time ago, but thought nothing of it. She instantly regretted that decision. "I want a battle, right here and right now!"

Her voice wanted to shout back in self-defense. One of the few things Aubrey genuinely hated was being yelled at. Instead, Aubrey gathered her words and spoke calmly and clearly. "I'm sorry, but not a Trainer," she admitted. "I don't have my own Pokemon…and I don't even have a Trainers' License."

Lincoln seemed to back off once the statement registered. A boy or girl had to be at least fifteen years old to qualify for a Trainers' License in the Johto region. And from the way she wore her clothes without any kind of care for looking womanly, right down to the childish strand of hair covering her face haphazardly, the girl standing in Lincoln's way looked positively middle-school. Only one thing didn't check out. Lincoln pointed a long, almost-adult finger to just past Aubrey's shoulder.

"You're not a Trainer, eh?" Lincoln said slowly, "then how do you explain _that_?"

Aubrey followed the finger in the air, tracing the path with her large hazel eyes, until she turned around and landed straight on her present company.

The Chikorita simply stared at her with an unmoving expression.

Aubrey had never seen a Chikorita up-close before. Her cousin had bred Bulbasaurs and Turtwigs when she was younger, and Aubrey's parents often baby-sat Bayleef and Meganiums from A-Class Trainers, but nobody had ever come through the Day Care with a starter Pokemon. From what Aubrey had read about them, the starter Pokemon were incredibly rare finds. Even with the advent of Breeding, starters were only handed out once a year because of how long their eggs took to hatch.

So, Aubrey wondered as she saw her first Chikorita, what was this one doing out by itself?

"Well?" Lincoln had taken to shouting again. "Is that one yours? Or what?"

Aubrey thought fast. She had never actually been friends with a Trainer, and the kids from school that left to become 'the very best' never returned, so if her father's words were biased, she had nothing to judge them against. However, if people like this Lincoln boy were representative of the rest of the Trainers in the world, then she knew to trust her father's advice. She slipped straight into action.

"You mean this Chikorita? It's mine," Aubrey knelt down and scooped up the Chikorita with her chubby arms. "Just for the day, I mean."

"But you just said you weren't a Trainer," Lincoln said dubiously.

"Oh, I'm definitely not. My parents run the Day Care half a mile from here," Aubrey told the rehearsed half-truth. "I'm taking this Chikorita on a walk."

When Lincoln's hard, black eyes appeared unconvinced, Aubrey added, "You're welcome to join us if you want. We're just headed into Cherrygrove City for lunch."

There was a tense pause as Lincoln tightened his grip on his backpack strap and pursed his thin lips. Aubrey thanked her lucky stars that the Pokemon in her arms was one of the calm ones; if this Chikorita were the kind to cry out and kick at strangers, there would be no way that she could sell Lincoln her phony story.

Lincoln shifted his weight between his feet as he locked eyes with Aubrey, and then with the Chikorita. If the girl were lying, then he was passing up a chance to catch a rare starter Pokemon, which was something virtually unheard of in _any_ region. But if he wound up just harming a child and stealing a Day Care's Pokemon, Lincoln's license would be gone like the wind.

The older Trainer counted his losses and exhaled uncaringly. "Whatever," he groaned. "Put that thing in a ball, will you? It's bloody freezing out here. That Pokemon looks like it could get all kinds of sick."

And with that, Lincoln passed Aubrey and continued on his fastidious way. Aubrey held onto the Chikorita tight as she listened for the boy's footsteps to fade away into the distance, then invariably turn down the road to New Bark Town, and finally grow silent altogether.

Aubrey knelt back down onto the road; Chikorita slowly crawled from her arms. It shivered as its tiny feet touched the frozen ground.

"You're lucky you didn't make much noise back there," Aubrey said cheerily. "If that boy thought you weren't mine, then he might have captured you, and trust me, you wouldn't have wanted that."

It was a paradox: Aubrey's family ran a Day Care for Trainers while simultaneously despising the act of Pokemon battling. Her parents were able to rationalize their decision by saying that the world will continue to treat Pokemon like weapons with or without their opinions. However, if their family can offer those Pokemon at least one day of respite from their ill-fated experiences, they will have done a good deed in the grand scheme of things. That's what Aubrey's parents believed, anyway. Aubrey herself had never given it much thought.

That wasn't the matter at hand, anyway. As Aubrey stared into the Chikorita, and it back at her, she realized that she was suddenly in a bit of a mess.

What was she going to do with it?

If she let the Chikorita go, then it might get caught by a Trainer like that annoying Lincoln. Since the Chikorita was a starter Pokemon, the obvious and expected move was to march it to New Bark Town…but wouldn't it meet the same fate there, just with some other Trainer?

Aubrey tried to think harder, but her stomach roared at her with unrelenting fury. When in doubt, the best option was typically to let the world do its thing. Odds are, this Chikorita was just temporarily lost from whatever group it traveled with. If Aubrey wandered away, then the Chikorita would simply find its way back to where it came from. No harm, no foul. She had saved it from Lincoln, and now her work was done.

"I've gotta go now, little fella!" Aubrey waved her gloved hand. "I'll see you around sometime, okay?"

The Chikorita just stared at her, uncomprehending. The moment ended as Aubrey stood back up, brushed off the snow from her calves, and started walking along the road. If she didn't get a sandwich in her system soon, her stomach would start chewing at itself. She put one foot in front of the other and kept on moving.

She soon stopped, barely a few feet from where she began.

Aubrey was far from stupid; she knew what this was. She'd turn around and find that Chikorita still there, shivering in the cold, and she'd feel compelled to take it along with her. She'd hang out with it for the entire day, come home and ask to keep it, then get rejected by her parents and forced to take it to New Bark Town where, sad as it sounded, the Chikorita belonged. It would just be one heartbreaking, day-long memory that would likely haunt her when she looked back on childhood from old age.

But even knowing this, Aubrey couldn't stop herself from turning around and seeing the Chikorita, its brown eyes beaming and its whole body shivering feverishly. Sure, the innocent Pokemon might find its way back home. It might also, you know, freeze to death.

Aubrey rolled her eyes and walked back to the small green Pokemon, stroking the leaf on its head before picking it up in her arms again. The Chikorita seemed to love the warm embrace; a small grin formed on its small, infant-like face.

"Don't get too comfy," Aubrey chided. "I'm going into town anyway, so I'll just drop you off at the Pokemon Center. They can get you cleaned up and find out where you belong. Does that sound good to you?"

The Chikorita curled up and buried itself in Aubrey's chest. She couldn't be sure if the response was a compliant yawn or a satisfied nod.

Either way, Aubrey had made up her mind. She was taking this freezing Chikorita into town, and that was that. At most, they'd be spending a few hours in each other's silent company. When she thought about it that way, it sounded incredibly pleasant. Aubrey tucked the mahogany lock of hair back into her stocking cap and pressed onward.

A/N: Hello, true believers! Thanks for reading, review if you can, and stick around if you'd like. I've got the next chapter coming shortly, and I'm really excited to work on this story.


	2. I: Some Kind of Missionary

Cherrygrove's Winter Knights

…

-Some Kind of Missionary

Even in the blistering cold of an unwelcoming Johto winter, a Pokemon Trainer is expected to tough it out and give it his or her very best. After all, the goal was to _be_ the very best. It meant hunkering down and fighting strong through punishing rain or heavenly shine, through the good and the bad, through the amazing ups and the terminal downs. It was a demand on Gym Leaders as well; a Leader couldn't just close down the gym because freak weather made the structure inaccessable. Trainers were counting on those gyms to be open and provide a challenge; Gym Leaders were sworn to uphold those challenges in the face of any adversity.

And, by the chain of command, the Junior Leaders were sworn to stop any lame Trainers from reaching the Leader inside. The Juniors served a dual purpose. On the one hand, they served as sort of checkpoints within the gym itself: a Trainer had to beat all of the Juniors blocking the road in order to advance. Some were optional fights, but this less than the norm. On the other hand, being a Junior Leader often meant defeat in every single battle inside of the gym. Challenging Trainers were surprisingly skilled, even when it came to taking on that very first gym in the nearby Violet City.

However, it was those Junior Leaders that were eventually promoted to Gym Leader. If not, they were free to work for peacekeeping organizations such as the heroic Band United, the soaring Trainers Unlimited, and even the elusive Convenant of Light itself. Most simply opted to serve in Victory Road, battling the best-of-the-best in their familiar Junior capacity, except with a now-healthy paycheck.

All in all, the title of Junior Leader was something to aspire to.

For fourteen-year-old Rory White, the Junior Leader role was something to plow through as fast as humanly possible.

Standing by the edge of Cherrygrove City with her arms crossed and a Pokeball in hand, Rory White could be either a force to be reckoned with or a child whose ego desperately needed deflating. She stood just barely at five feet and four inches, but her frown held had enough intimidation for five people twice her size. Rory's unruly red hair flowed down her back in vigorous curls; she had pulled it into a ponytail rather than let it battle the snow, but this only succeeded in making her hair appear like a trail of fire running down the length of her back. The top of her head remained a volcano of crimson curl. She complimented the look with matching earmuffs.

Rory liked to think that the abundance of red in her wardrobe wasn't a wholly inaccurate metaphor.

As she flipped the Pokeball in her left hand, every cell in her veins ached for combat; Rory's knobby knees pumped up and down with overflowing energy. She had been out here for the better part of the entire day, for the better part of the entire week. Just because she couldn't be inside the Violet City Gym itself didn't mean she was unable to practice obstructing Trainers out in the wild, right?

She stared onto the horizon, waiting for the inevitable traveler unfortunate enough to cross her line of sight—

"Ha!" She exclaimed as a lone figure appeared down the trail. "I've got one!"

Rory tossed the ball higher into the air and caught it with a powerful grip. With every step this new Trainer took, he or she was coming closer to destruction. There was _no_ way of getting through her, and after a decidedly one-sided battle, getting to Cherrygrove would become nothing but a desperate pipe dream.

The Chikorita in Aubrey's arms had fallen asleep more than twenty minutes ago, and now the young girl was worried. Aubrey was only just going into the ninth grade, but even she knew what happened to living creatures who fell asleep in winter weather. Aubrey tightened her embrace, hoping that the Chikorita might stay warm enough to make it to Cherrygrove's Pokemon Center, but the poor grass Pokemon had been shivering for what felt like forever.

Luckily for Chikorita—and to a lesser extent, Aubrey's appetite—the last sign they had passed said that Cherrygrove was less than a mile away. Aubrey could almost feel the warmth of a sandwich in her belly and the satisfaction of a good deed well done—

"Hey! You with the Chikorita!"

Aubrey stopped in her tracks. She whipped her head in every direction; the snow had picked up, and it was becoming impossibly difficult to see five feet in front of her face. The mane of red curls ran up to her so quickly that Aubrey skeptically wondered if a Ponyta had gotten lost on the trail.

The matter was quickly cleared up when that same red mane called out again. "You're not getting past me," it roared. "We're battling, right here and right now!"

Aubrey rolled her eyes and groaned. Not this again. Wasn't there anything more important to people than forcing inncoent creatures to fight?

A final stride brought Rory out of the white expanse and face to face with her unwilling opponent. Rory composed herself, standing upright and flicking strands of crimson hair out of her eyes. Her hold on the Pokeball was tight enough that Aubrey could see frost forming between her fingers and the ball's surface.

When Aubrey didn't let the Chikorita out of her arms and order an attack command, Rory grew even more antsy. The red hair on her head seemed to have its own war dance against the chilling wind.

"Well?" Rory asked, more than a little confused. "Aren't you going to fight me?"

"I can't," An agitated Aubrey replied. She wondered which of the many reasons she could shoot back. "I'm not a Trainer," she decided. "And even if I were, this Chikorita is in no condition to fight. It's freezing, and I'm taking it to the Cherrygrove Pokemon Center."

"Freezing, huh?" Rory leaned over just slightly, enough to glimpse at the green lump of a Pokemon holed up in the other girl's chest. The iconic Chikorita leaf had frost and ice water forming on its edges.

"Sorry, but no dice," Rory said. "You can't fool me!"

"Come again..?"

"You just know you can't beat me. Not that I blame you: I'm Rory White, the Junior Leader Extrordinaire!" She pounded a gloved fist on her heart. To Aubrey, this Rory was the poster child for 'tooting your own horn'. "_I_ bet that Chikorita's just fine," Rory continued. "You're having it fake being sick just to get past me, because you _know_ you'll never make it to Cherrygrove otherwise.

"Don't try to lie," Rory sang, pulling up one of her earmuffs and holding a hand to her ear. "You know that's the truth. Tell me honestly! I might let an honest coward go free."

There was a slight pause—

"Are you _mental_?" Aubrey groaned. Her dwindling patience grew increasingly thinner. With each passing second, the Chikorita's convulsions became stronger. She wanted to look and see if it was even breathing regularly, but Aubrey couldn't be sure this nutjob Trainer wouldn't just attack her in cold blood. "This Pokemon is sick. Step aside, I need to get it to a Pokemon Center right away, and you're just holding us up."

Rory paused; her hold on the Pokeball laxed slightly. Trainers tried to worm their way out of fights so often that Rory thought that she'd heard every phony excuse in the book. The protocol for being a Junior Leader was to never let anyone pass, no exceptions. But for one, there _could _be some gray area. On the one hand, Rory wasn't exactly inside a gym, so the rules didn't necessarily apply.

On the other hand, if she actually let this girl through, would she just be getting her career off on the wrong foot..?

Rory flipped the ball once, twice, and then put it back on the slot in her belt. She stretched out her fingers, then reached out wide. Aubrey stood cautiously still.

"Protocol says I'm supposed to make you turn around, heal at New Bark Town, and fight me later—"

"I _told_ you, I'm not—"

"_But_, you're not even a real Trainer," Rory said, raising an eyebrow and flashing an amused smile. As if someone with a starter Pokemon could be anyone _other_ than a rookie Trainer. What a joke _that_ was.

"And besides, we Junior Leaders represent the Pokemon Global Federation and thus must uphold our promise to protect all Pokemon, everywhere," Rory recited. Aubrey instantly wondered how this Federation classified forcing Pokemon into meaningless battles, but that wasn't the issue. She stayed quiet and waited for Rory to finish.

"In other words," Rory visibly relaxed, lowering her wild arms, holding her hands behind her back, and rocking on her heels. "I'm going to guide you to Cherrygrove City personally. Just to make sure you get that Chikorita the help it needs without any idiot Trainers interrupting you along the way."

Rory grinned from ear to ear, obviously proud of herself. Aubrey decided to ignore the irony—'idiot Trainers?'—and accepted the offer. "Thank you," Aubrey said. "So much. I _do_ appreaciate it."

"Not a problem! No one's gonna mess with us. Believe that! My Pokemon are indestructible, and everyone here knows it."

Aubrey reserved the right to decide that for herself.

"Oh!" Rory stopped just when it looked like they were ready to press onward. "I've got an idea." She pulled off her black sweater, revealing a thermal pullover underneath that was covering yet another article of clothing. "We JL's need to be out here practicing for a long time, and it gets ridiculously cold out here, so I've got more than enough layers. Let me..."

Rory held the sweater out hesitantly. This not-a-Trainer girl might bite Rory's head off if she moved too fast. Aubrey paused at first, but quickly realized that this was genuine help. Aubrey held the Chikorita out slightly; Rory wrapped the Pokemon up in the sweater and tucked it back against Aubrey's parka.

"That Chikorita's ice cold," Rory noted. "It's a good thing I found you when I did!"

Aubrey fought against saying anything insulting. She knew better than to look a gift Girafarig in the mouth.

"Anyway, we need to get moving," Rory said. "It's at least another fifteen minutes before we get into town. We gotta hustle!"

That's what Aubrey was trying to do before all of this started, but again, she bit her tongue. Without further deliberation, Aubrey and Rory started back down the trail. It was an interesting sight: two young girls, one with her back apparently on fire and the other clutching a black bundle as tight as possible.

"We didn't even get introduced! I'm totally messing this up," Rory grimaced. "I'm supposed to have a script before I force you to fight me..."

"Come again?"

"Disregard that! I'm Rory, Junior Leader of Violet City Gym and future Covenant of Light Operative! And don't forget it!" She exclaimed proudly, half to Aubrey and half to the winds of fate. Snow fell in her open mouth; Rory wiped her tongue clean with her hands. "What about you? What's your story, Chikorita-Keepa?" She chuckled at her own pun.

"I'm Aubrey. My parents run the Day Care a couple of miles down the road."

Rory waited for Aubrey to tell a joke or a pun. She was stunned when it didn't come, but understood why. This Aubrey kid must not have been the laughing type."The princess of a Day Care, eh? That explains the Chikorita."

"What do you mean?" Aubrey asked offhandedly. She wasn't focused on the banal conversation.; every second spent wasting her breath was a second that the Chikorita could lose it.

"You care about Pokemon differently than I do," Rory noted. "Differently than most people, at least.

"I mean, look at you. It's like you're that Chikorita's mother or something," Rory chuckled again.

After an awkward pause, Aubrey looked up from the freezing Pokemon into Rory's brown-eyed stare. "I just care about living things," she said, trying not to seem rude. She was definitely grateful for the help. "I'm not some kind of missionary. I just...If I see a Pokemon in danger, I'll want to make sure it's okay. That's all."

As Aubrey finished, she felt a deep insecurity welling up in her gut. She'd just told someone who was part of some kind of Official Federation Convenant thingy that she wanted to help Pokemon instead of battle them. She had to seem like a real weirdo. Aubrey waited for some kind of chiding monologue—

"That's cool, I guess," Rory shrugged. She flashed an ambivalent smile."We're both Pokemon people. That's something."

Aubrey shrugged and returned the gesture. The girls continued their journey in a comfortable silence. As they walked, the buildings of Cherrygrove City became faintly visible against the white backdrop of an ever-growing blizzard.

A/N: I'm going to work to update this story at least once a week. I'm planning to have it done before the end of August. Strap in and stay tuned, true believers. As always, if you like what you read, then please let me know!

Also! Thanks for letting me know about the typos. They should be fixed now.


	3. I: Welcome to the Pokemart

Cherrygrove's Winter Knights

…

-Welcome to the Pokemart

Aubrey lamented not being the top student of her class, if only because she was also not the bottom of the barrel. If she were legitimately the dimmest bulb in her classmates' box, then she could excuse herself for not being the smartest one there. This was far from the truth; Aubrey could do the work, but perfection was an impossible standard for her to achieve. Aubrey had to live with the printed paper that came home every six weeks, decreeing in cheap blue ink that she was destined for mediocrity. Aubrey usually didn't detest things like words on pages, but her grades were an exception, though not for the same reasons as her friends.

Ryan was angry that his 'C' in Earth Science kept him from going to camp in the Sevii Islands over spring break. Destiny's 'A' in Gym meant she could go to Goldenrod City this weekend and buy her very own bike, complete with the new Mach and Acro gears. Aubrey already had everything she wanted. She simply hated knowing that, in a world where the very best become legend and the very worst at least get a free pass, she resided in the no-man's land of unremarkable existence.

And yet, Aubrey mused, she didn't have to be the top student in her grade to know that something was _very_ wrong in Cherrygrove City.

As Aubrey and Rory first walked down the narrow Cherrygrove sidewalks, the girls excused the absence of people as a side effect of the snow. After they noticed a distinct lack of Pokemon, Rory suggested that the Pokemon were hibernating. Aubrey knew better; Pokemon that hibernated lived further up north. This part of the country was home to critters and other small wildlife. They were small, cuddly, and definitely not the kind of Pokemon that would be completely absent in a human population center like Cherrygrove City.

While it had started out as nothing more than a hamlet, Cherrygrove expanded shortly after New Bark Town found its unparalleled fame. Whereas New Bark Town changed itself to become a tourist trap, Cherrygrove City became a center of culture. The University of Johto at Cherrygrove was the flagship campus of Johto's education system; the Museum of Modern Art attracted travelers from all walks of life; the coast was now lined with small stores and street vendors. Running into the occasional Sentret or Hoothoot on the street was only part of the Cherrygrove experience.

So as Aubrey and Rory traversed an utterly barren city, they both slowly felt the same sensation: that very same experience had seemingly died, replaced with a barren winter wasteland.

The girls stopped as they passed the first city directory, situated on a street corner and in a cherry-red metal case. Rory brushed the frost off of the glass and studied the orange 'you are here' dot. Aubrey noticed that her new company looked more than a little confused. "You haven't been to the Pokemon Center before?" Aubrey asked.

"I have," Rory had to raise her voice against the wind, "But I usually come at it from the Violet City entrance. Now, let me see..." Rory began to trace an invisible line with her finger. Her petite frame jumped as she tapped on the Pokemon Center's image.

"I've got it!" She said. "We're about ten blocks away. Thank you, Mister Directory!"

Aubrey rolled her eyes as Rory flashed a thumbs-up. The girls started back down the barren sidewalk as the temperature continued to drop. The snow that at first wafted gently from the sky now pelted them in vengeful clusters. Wind chill only exacerbated the biting cold at their exposed faces. The Chikorita's breathing had slowed and evened, but if the weather got any worse, Aubrey worried that the jacket might not do enough.

Without traffic, the ten blocks took a tenth of the time to traverse that they otherwise would have. Aubrey and Rory would first pause and wait for the streetlight to change, but after the first three instances of waiting to cross streets with less activity than unmarked graves, the pair took to crossing the streets at their own discretion. The glacier-white buildings hovering over them made Aubrey grow uncomfortable, as though they were obelisks watching her with skeptical eyes. She watched the doors pass by: each one was either locked tight or had a metal gate pulled down.

"It's like a ghost town," Aubrey noted. "Was it like this when you came through from Violet?"

Rory shook her head. "I came through like...two days ago? And believe me, it was nothing like this. For one thing, there were signs of sentient life-forms."

Aubrey let a lone giggle escape her chapped lips.

The Pokemon Center loomed just down the road. It occupied an entire city block; the renovated building had rooms for Trainers, multiple dining halls, global link terminals, and probably more things that Aubrey's friends just hadn't heard about. Rory walked into the middle of the street and trotted toward their destination.

"I _told_ you I'd get you here!" She said. Aubrey wondered which one of them Rory was trying to convince. "Never doubt the skills of a Junior Leader!"

Rory's bright smile waned as they neared the front entrance. As the red-haired girl approached the glass doors, she examined the noticed plastered from the inside. Aubrey stopped short of the entrance; she had a hunch she knew what the situation was.

"Weird," Rory said. She turned back to Aubrey and pointed to the sign with an outstretched finger. "According to this, Cherrygrove's been shut down for the week."

Correction: Aubrey had _no_ idea what the situation was. Snow began to melt from her eyelashes; she blinked rapidly. "That can't be right. Pokemon Centers never close. And there's a lot more than just Trainers that come through here, too."

Rory examined the sign a second time. "That's what it says, though," she lamented. "I guess we're out of luck."

'Out of luck' wasn't an option. Aubrey's mind raced, her heart beat accelerating to at least three times the speed of the Pokemon in her arms. What else could she do? Violet City was at least a week's walk away. They were too far now to turn back to New Bark Town, and while her parents' Day Care was much closer, they didn't have healing facilities.

"Wait a minute!" Rory started again. Her face hovered centimeters over the window; Aubrey wondered what they would do if Rory got her face stuck. "There's something else here."

When Aubrey didn't speak up, Rory continued. "So...Get this! 'The Pokemart will remain open for the duration of closures. Please direct your questions there.' That's bizarre, though. Why would they close the Pokemon Center but leave a store open?"

While it didn't make any sense, it was something. "Where is it?" Aubrey asked.

"You want to check it out?"

"If it's open, then I can buy something that will help," Aubrey said. The Pokemart here catered to rookie Pokemon; they would certainly have cheap Potions for sale.

Rory got the message. She nodded and waved her arm down the street to her left. "I remember how to get there from here!" She said happily. "It's not far. Come on!"

Aubrey followed, her spirits only slightly revived. She and Rory walked again in silence, this time more because of the growing cold than lack of anything to say. To the contrary, questions piled up in Aubrey's mind at a clip. Only one underlay all others: what would cause an entire city to shut down suddenly?

"Hey, there's people out!"

Rory pointed to the lone figures behind them. They were easily ten, even fifteen years older than the two girls. Aubrey couldn't tell if the handful of figures were men or women, but she decided that didn't matter. If people were still around, then perhaps things were not as grim as they looked.

The Pokemart, a short blue building with the iconic rotating sign out front, welcomed the girls with the bright lights that glistened behind the glass doors. Aubrey had forgotten how hungry she actually was. While they wouldn't be a toasty sandwich like she had been looking forward, a few candy bars or some toaster pastries would more than calm her appetite. The girls entered the building and were instantly met with warm, soothing air.

"Welcome to the Pokemart," said the man behind the counter. "How can I help you today?"

Aubrey wanted to race to the counter and set the Chikorita down, but decided against it. She had the horrible feeling that the poor Pokemon might get worse if she let it go for even a second. "My Chikorita got lost in the cold," Aubrey repeated the half-truth. "The Pokemon Center's closed, and—"

"You want a Freeze Heal and a Potion, kid," Rory said nonchalantly as she meandered along the isles. She pointed upward, "third row on the left."

Aubrey nodded, then bolted for the row in question. She would wind up spending all of her emergency money on helping the Chikorita—whom she still had no idea what to do with—but felt that her parents wouldn't mind.

"How may I help you?" The shopkeeper asked. He looked no more than thirty, but his voice was raspy like sandpaper.

Rory stretched her arms wide over her head. It felt good to move around without snow getting everywhere. "It's not us; just that Chikorita over there," she pointed to Aubrey. "We were gonna hit up the Pokemon Center, but it's closed. Which is pretty weird."

She paused for a moment. "Can I ask you a question?"

The man at the desk didn't move.

"What's up with this town?" Rory asked. "Like...I've never seen anywhere just go dead like this. What's the deal?"

The man continued to remain motionless. A concerned Rory walked closer to the desk, and an eerie shock disturbed her system. The man held still as a statue. His chest didn't even move; it was as though he were a picture-perfect sculpt of a man.

"Um," Rory raised a hand. "Sir? Hul-lo?"

"Welcome to the Pokemart. How can I help you today?" The man's delivery was exactly the same as before. This time, Rory watched the movements carefully. The lines around his mouth were too fine; his hair didn't move the way a normal person's would. Rory had never seen anything like this.

Was it a robot or something?

Whatever answer it was, Rory didn't want to find out. She knew what this man wasn't. Besides, this place was weird enough already.

"Aubrey?" She called out, her gaze still fixed on the not-man behind the desk. "Call me a loony, but I kinda think we should get out of here. Like, now?"

Aubrey stepped out from the isles. Her one free hand held two Potions and the expected Freeze Heal, both in store-brand boxes. "I still need to pay for these first," she said.

"How about not?"

Aubrey's eyebrow went up. "I'm not going to steal."

"You're not going to pay for anything either," Rory said fast. She fought and failed to keep the panic out of her voice. She pointed shakily to the front counter. "That's not a person, Aubs."

_Aubs?_

"...You _are_ mental."

"I'm dead serious!" Rory pushed the envelope. "Like a heart-attack! That guy is not human."

Aubrey brushed past Rory and made her way to the front desk. She didn't have time for Rory's ridiculousness; the Chikorita needed these items as fast as possible. Aubrey set the boxes on the counter and reached for her wallet—

"Welcome to the Pokemart. How can I help you today?"

Aubrey froze. Words moved to leave her cold lips—

The doors swung open behind them. The gust of ice wind made the girls jump. They turned around quickly; Aubrey recognized the figures from earlier. For the record, they had both been men. Men with goggles and red scarves, at that. They towered at six feet, their limbs almost painfully lean. Aubrey felt even more hungry just looking at the two of them.

"How are we doing tonight, ladies?" The one on the right said. From the moment he opened his mouth, Rory's body had tensed. Aubrey noticed that she had changed: she was suddenly calm. Prepared.

"We're fine, thanks," Aubrey said.

"Uh-huh," said the one on the left. "What's that you got there?" He nodded to Aubrey's arms.

"Nunya!" Rory ccalled back. "We were just leaving, so get out of the way, if you don't mind."

The men looked at one another before breaking out into laughter. "Yeah, that's not going to happen," the right one said. "Here's how it's going to be: you're forking over the Chikorita and any other Pokemon you have, and then you're coming for a little walk outside with us."

Aubrey squeezed the Chikorita tight and quickly ran behind Rory, who already had a Pokeball out and held at arm's length. The deathly-fierce grip had returned in full force. Aubrey knew when a battle was about to happen; Trainers held their Pokeballs out like they were combat-weary swords.

"You don't want to get on my nerves," Rory said, her words surprisingly firm. "Not if you know what's good for you. Get out of the way, or else—"

"Or else what, little girl?"

"Or else you'll have to answer to me! I'm a Junior Leader, you know! Serving under Falkner, JL number four! Rory White!" Aubrey thanked the stars that Rory didn't finish her introduction with a pose. It wouldn't have helped; the men simply smirked. They looked from one to the other, as though something were being said without simple words.

Pokeballs came from one menacing wristband—

Aubrey shut her eyes against the punishing white glow—

The powerful roar of fearsome, beastly Pokemon echoed through the walls and cast fear into Aubrey's core. She had never seen anything like it: a blue, almost teal creature made of stone. The white 'X' on its face and the four legs made it much more alien than even the weirdest Pokemon that had come by the Day Care. It dug its spiked feet into the floor, cracking the tile and digging through to the gravel below.

"Metagross!" The man called out. The Pokemon barely seemed to listen. "Teach these babies a lesson. _Then_ we'll get their Pokemon."

Despite her overflowing bravado, Rory was frightened. She was used to fighting rookie Pokemon, if not evolved forms of those creatures. This was no amateur's combatant; she had never seen this type of Pokemon before. Aubrey was only slightly better off: she knew that owners of that Pokemon usually had all eight Johto badges and were ready to take on another country, if not already halfway through conquering Kanto.

In other words, this was one scary enemy. Aubrey watched as Rory drew her own Pokeball back shakily, already seeing an outcome in her head—

A final breeze came from the front door.

"Don't throw out that Pokeball," said the girl that walked through the glass doors. Her smooth gait and confident strides made the men take heed instantly. "That is not what you think it is."

The Metagross's owner scoffed. "Just who do you think you are? Another nobody?"

Rory pursed her lips. The new stranger shook out her arms. The sleeves of her dark green jacket rustled slightly, but against the tension of the room, they might as well have been explosive.

"I'll have to make this quick," the girl said. The doors closed behind her with a solid 'ding'. "Before this gets too out of hand," she added to herself.

Aubrey had never seen a person like this before. The girl must have only been one or two years older than them—sixteen years old at most—but her strong, unwavering demeanor belied her years. Her round face ended at a decidedly pointed chin, framing her deep black eyes. Only her curves—not yet those of an adult woman—undermined her sheer presence.

The girl pulled back her hood: black curls fell to her shoulders in a cascading midnight waterfall.

"This is ridiculous," the right man said. He was impossibly faster than his associate: the Pokeball was out, against the floor, and a canine whose veins flowed with electricity—Electrike— lunged for her. Aubrey gripped Rory's jacket tight, and Rory braced for a gruesome sight—

The girl only sighed.

The Electrike soared through the air, fangs out and hungry. In response, the girl simply held up her left arm. What came next was unbelievable: the Electrike's jaw clamped onto the arm and hung there like a magnet. The girl whipped her arm quickly to her right, and then violently across her entire body. The Electrike crashed against the wall of the Pokemart, leaving an indent in the wall and a Pokemon struggling to stand up.

Aubrey and Rory held their breaths. The two men understood their new opponent; Metagross turned and faced the other way.

"You don't get it, do you?" The Metagross's owner boasted, this time with a hint of hesitation. "You can't stop what's happening. We're Team—"

"Team Cipher, twenty-eighth brigade in the Johto region," the girl recited. "And if I'm not mistaken, these are Shadow Pokemon.

"You must feel great about yourselves," she scolded.

Aubrey let the words silently cross her lips. What was a Shadow Pokemon?

And when Aubrey glimpsed the torn sleeve where the Electrike had bitten into the girl's arm...what was that silver plating that shined so brightly underneath?

"Like I was saying, I'll make this quick," the girl reached toward her back pocket.

The man remained unfazed. "Oh?" And since you know so much about us...who might you be?"

Aubrey and Rory felt the air grow thin—

"The name is Marie Green, Agent No. 24 of the Covenant of Light. Consider this a warning shot."

A/N: I'm hoping that with this chapter, the overall direction of where the story goes is becoming a little clearer. As always, thanks a bunch for reading, and if you like what you read or have anything helpful at all, please review.


	4. I: Glorified Interns

Cherrygrove's Winter Knights

…

-Glorified Interns

In the days shortly after Pokemon Master Red was defeated at the hands of Johto's own Gold, the world as people knew it changed dramatically. Red had kept Team Rocket from taking over the largest company on the continent; Gold had wrenched Goldenrod City from their menacing grasp. The stage was set for an international showdown of child gods, but the boys themselves had other plans. The two Trainers, independent of any country, agreed to an alliance and parted ways.

From then on, wherever an evil syndicate lurked, it would have to fear the might of these two warriors. Word of their heroic deeds spread like wildfire across the world. In less than a year, Red and Gold announced that their agreement was not exclusive; any powerful Trainers were invited to take up their cause. Soon, Brendan of Hoenn joined the cause, ushering in a new pride in Hoenn's trainers. Sinnoh's champion Dawn joined not soon after, expanding their meager duo to an assembled team of skilled Trainers.

The four keepers of justice created a banner under which no evil could stand. Under this banner of righteous might, they christened themselves the Covenant of Light.

Unlike the organizations that already existed, these heroes were not bound to any specific cause. They were not sworn to uphold cross-national unity like the mighty Band United, they did not strive to work with Pokemon to better mankind like the heroic Pokemon Rangers, but neither did they seek the end to our world like Team Galactic. The Covenant of Light, composed of the greatest protectors of man and Pokemon alike, fought to maintain that relationship from all who would threaten it. Wherever injustice lurked, they would come to protect those who could not protect themselves, to help the helpless, to be the force of good that the world lacked.

And standing before Aubrey and Rory, facing down two mercenaries of Team Cipher, was one of those very members...not that the men believed her. The Covenant of Light was known for its sheer might, presence, and uncanny ability to strike fear into the hearts of the opposition. Teenage girls were not the face of this mighty brigade.

"Whatever you say, Marie Green," the man on the left mocked. "'The Covenant of Light', she says...please. Little girls have so much imagination these days." His voice dropped to a serious bass. "Metagross!"

The blue steel Pokemon tensed its turquoise, hardened muscles. Marie could see the raw insanity in its deep, purple eyes. It looked hungry, the way a man starved for a month might look upon freedom.

"Make mince meat out of her," he ordered.

As the Metagross crouched down and lined up its pouncing, likely terminal strike, Marie saw her chance. She tore a Pokeball from her belt, just above her back pocket. There was no fear in the motion, only cool and collected instinct.

Aubrey noticed how different this Pokeball was from the simple red-and-white affairs that she had seen all her life. This blue and white ball shined impossibly bright, the silver of the ball's rim reflecting everyone in the room like a mirror. Aubrey saw the gold of the lock button as Marie threw the ball into the air. It twirled like a shooting star that flew through the sky.

It erupted halfway through its descent, bursting in a wave of teal light—

"Emolga, Aerial Ace, now!"

None in the room had even seen the Pokemon emerge from the ball, but Marie didn't need to see the game board to know the positions of the pieces. Without warning or any kind of prior signal, a blur of yellow and gray struck down and through the Metagross, almost as through the rock-solid combatant were made of warm butter. The Metagross tumbled onto its backside with an accompanying crash. It flailed its legs wildly, unable to stand, much less to attack.

"You're not out of this yet!" Its owner said. He sounded far less than certain. "Use Shadow Blitz!"

Marie's eyes widened; her legs tensed and grounded themselves. What came next, neither Aubrey or Rory had seen before.

The Metagross began to radiate a violet light.

It was no glow like that released from the Pokeballs; it started out like a small line of smoke, as though the Metacross were on fire from the inside. The smoke grew to a haze, engulfing the incapacitated Pokemon entirely. The haze slowly started to dissipate—

Two bursts of bright violet shot forward from the haze-covered Metagross, racing for the yellow figure above them—

Marie's emotions remained invisible. Aubrey could read this new girl as easily as she could a statue.

"Emolga, fly…Now!"

The gold blur raced for the ceiling, and just when the violet bullets were about to collide into it, the flying Pokemon dived. It crashed into the Metagross's unprotected, exposed belly from a nearly ninety-degree angle; tile and rubble exploded apart as the Pokemon was jammed even further into its crater.

The Cipher men were stunned.

Rory was too caught up in the fight to think about anything else.

Aubrey, however, became gripped by a definitive _fear_. It was no longer a fear for herself, for Rory, or even for the Chikorita that she found herself attached to. Rather, it was a fear that this battle was somehow her doing.

The Metagross was in terrible pain, its body growing bruised and scraped by the second. But did it deserve any of it? By itself, the Metagross had done nothing wrong. It simply fell into the hands of evil men, and it found its way into a fight. The new girl's Pokemon was beating it into a pulp…but Metagross was simply following the orders of a man who obviously didn't care. When was this going to stop? When the Metagross was left utterly defenseless? When it passed out from the beating?

But Aubrey couldn't just blame these men, could she? After all, the Covenant girl is forcing her own Pokemon to hurt the Metagross. Rory was goading it along like a glorified cheerleader.

Aubrey started to wonder. If she had to...could she stop it?

Suddenly energized just enough to regain control of her body, Aubrey looked up for the briefest of seconds. It was long enough for her to connect with Marie's onyx eyes; Aubrey shot her petrified gaze back toward the floor. Marie's stare wasn't like the trainers that came to the Day Care; it was the penetrative stare of a combat master. There was no doubt; only calculation.

Emolga dived for one more strike. The room shook from the resounding magnitude of the earth-shattering strike.

Marie seemingly relaxed, losing her dramatic pose and waving an arm upward. "Let's wrap this up," she said. This time from her pocket, she produced a normal Pokeball, with the red color instead of the Covenant design. Marie gripped the ball in her left hand, and Aubrey couldn't be sure, but the girl's fingers seemed to be made of a wiry, almost rusted metal.

With a pitcher's iron force, Marie threw the ball into the makeshift arena—

The explosion of gold light nearly blinded Rory. Meanwhile, still ducked safely behind her new friend, Aubrey could see exactly what this was. The ball hovered in midair as—she could scarcely believe her eyes—a hand made from light reached forth and grasped the fallen Metagross. The intangible hand lifted and pulled the Pokemon back inside the ball, and the latch snapped tight. The Pokeball fell back down, a few inches in front of Marie's feet.

It wriggled once, twice, three times before the lock glowed red, and finally faded.

Aubrey was no stranger to the way Trainers conducted their work. She was obviously no Trainer, nor did she ever plan on being one, but she knew how Pokemon battles worked. Catching another Trainer's Pokemon...didn't that break fundamental laws? Wasn't that banned by the Pokemon Leagues of every country, worldwide?

Apparently that didn't matter to this new girl. Marie snatched the ball up quickly, flipped it once in her hand, and put it on her back belt. The yellow blur had flown up in the ceiling, virtually invisible, and the Cipher men were now overcome with a distinct sensation of dread. With no Pokemon to defend them, the men were sitting targets.

The Covenant girl watched the Cipher men with challenging eyes. "You were saying?"

The yellow blur zipped across her body so quickly that it looked to Aubrey like her clothes had blown themselves.

The men stared at one to the other, eyes frantic. The man on the left began fishing through his pockets desperately, his hands shaking, while the other looked between Marie and Rory with overflowing hubris. "You Covenants think you're so great," he said, "Wait until the Big Man gets through with you!"

"Yeah!" the second man said, his threat sounding far less than certain. "You'll get what's coming to you!" Aubrey had a feeling that all Pokemon-abusing gangsters were required to say something like that.

The second man produced a small box from his pocket. Aubrey noticed multiple buttons on it, all surrounding a central button with what looked like a shovel emblazoned on it.

The man slammed his entire fist onto the center button in violent desperation. As soon as he left go of the button, the two men appeared to rotate quickly as they stood in place, spinning faster and faster until they disappeared from sight. A final flash of light saw the men utterly vanish from the Pokemart, leaving no trace other than the crater in the room.

The three girls seemed to pause, waiting for some signal to tell them that the danger had passed.

Aubrey hesitantly walked out from Rory's protection, the recovered Chikorita still bundled in her arms.

Marie pulled her hood back up, turned, and made her way to the exit. Her long strides suddenly made sense. This was the walk of a girl who _never_ lost a fight. Defeat was no option. To her, victory was not a matter of 'if', but 'when'.

Rory scoffed. As if she were going to let a girl from the Covenant of Light just walk out like that.

"Hey!" Rory called.

When Marie seemed entirely unfazed, Rory tried again. "Hey!" She shouted, "I'm talking to you!"

Marie stopped in her tracks, but she continued to face away from the loud, obnoxious girl behind her.

"If you're going to start talking, then actually say something," Marie said. It definitely came off as more of a challenge than a greeting. Rory simply saw it as a chance to flap her gums. "If you don't mind. I don't enjoy wasting my breath."

"There's something weird going on in town," Rory started. "Nobody's here, the buildings are all closed, and now there's talk of…whatever gang that was. First I thought everything was all wonky because of the weather, but I get it now. There's something going down, isn't there? Something _big_."

"What makes you think that?"

Rory smirked so loudly that Aubrey was surprised she didn't just end up sneezing on herself. "Don't play coy with me! I'm a Junior Leader in Violet City, so I know what the Covenant of Light being here means. They sent you here to take care of something. So, what is it?"

"A Junior Leader," Marie repeated. Her listening skills might have been compromised from the vicious sounds of recent combat, but Aubrey could swear that the Covenant girl was saying the title with a deep condescension. "I don't suppose you're the kind that roams around the outlying counties too, right?" Marie continued.

"You got that part correct!" Rory boasted. Whatever fear, worry, or hesitation showed itself moments ago had disappeared entirely. The girl flicked her head from side to side. Her fiery plumes of hair rocked with a rhythmic procession. "Part of a JL's job is to always be training. We've gotta be in tip-top condition!"

"Always training," Marie continued in a less than proud tone, "because the Junior Leaders are so weak that it's almost embarrassing. They're glorified interns."

Rory didn't need to say anything. In a swift motion, Marie lowered her hood and turned back to face the girls. The insult was worse than its face value; Aubrey saw in Marie's expression that this was a genuine belief. Marie wasn't being mean simply to be mean. She wasn't even _trying_ to be offensive. In her own way, Marie was simply telling the truth.

"Though I suppose you'll want to challenge me on that," Marie offered sarcastically.

Rory started a sentence and stopped it halfway through. She quickly weighed her options. Of the many skills a JL required, being able to pick your battles outside of the gym was a necessity. What did she want, to fight this Covenant Operative or to say she helped one?

"Not at all," Rory resigned. Her boisterous attitude had reigned itself in. "This isn't about your…really, _really_ wrong opinion of us," Rory said. She was proud of herself for staying mature, though she refused to show it.

"What I'm asking about," she went on, "is why the Covenant is in town when all signs point to there being a crisis. And, since I'm a government-sanctioned official, I'm pretty sure there's a law somewhere that requires you to tell me. Or something like that. Probably."

Aubrey rolled her eyes. The Chikorita looked up over Aubrey's arms and into the ceiling. It blinked its small eyes rapidly, trying to keep up with the zipping figure above them. It quickly gave up trying, instead opting to rest its head against Aubrey's chest again.

After throwing around heavy words like 'government-sanctioned' and 'crisis', Rory was more than confident that this Covenant Operative her own age would start to cooperate. Marie had other plans.

"I don't know why you're going on about this," Marie sighed. "I doubt you'll be of much help. I'm on an official mission, as you are obnoxiously aware. However," Marie said skeptically, "the manuals do say that local officials are allowed to offer assistance—"

"Good! Then you'll let us help!"

"_Us_?"

"Us! I'm Rory White, and this quiet chick behind me is Aubrey," Rory stabbed the air behind her with an enthusiastic thumb. "She's not gonna do anything, though. _I'm_ the one the crooks are gonna have to worry about."

Aubrey wondered with a disgruntled thought, how did she always wind up with friends like these? Her parents often chided her for not having many friends to bring over during the summer vacation, but that's because the friends Aubrey _did_ make were all weird. The last kid Aubrey had been friends with enjoyed eating glue and folding Origami out of coffee-soaked white paper. That was a few months ago—the kid moved away and was allegedly hospitalized for a glue overdose—but things obviously hadn't changed. Here she was, about to be dragged into some ridiculous journey with a girl she just met.

But as Aubrey hurried to find a way to excuse herself from tagging along, she realized her options were as barren as Cherrygrove City itself.

What else could she do? Violet City had the nearest Pokemon Center, but she didn't know the way, and it was allegedly another day's walk, so she couldn't go and be back in time for dinner. New Bark Town was still an option, but the Chikorita would _still_ be given away to a Trainer and made to face a similar fate to the Metagross: never-ending battle. Aubrey would die before she submitted a defenseless creature to that kind of a life. But there was nothing for her or Chikorita in this town, either…

Her stomach growled violently. Aubrey had forgotten how hungry she was.

"That's her saying 'yes'!" Rory continued to steer the conversation. "We'll just need to feed her along the way, but you can count us in!"

It was now Marie's turn to give Aubrey a once-over. The pathetic of a frail little girl bundled up against the winter cold, holding a small grass Pokemon in her arms that had probably never fought before, was not exactly the picture of 'assistance' that Marie was looking for.

"Do you have a Pokeball for that thing?" Marie asked. She pointed a lax finger at the Chikorita in the small girl's arms.

Aubrey shook her head.

"You want one? It's gonna get even colder out there."

She shook her head again. "We're fine, thanks," she said. It came out more sharply than she had intended, but that was okay. Marie got the message; she shrugged again and dropped the subject.

"Fair enough," Marie said, sounding more defeated than accepting. "Just don't get in my way." She turned her hood back up and started for the door. "Emolga, return."

Without looking where she was pointing, Marie held the gold Pokeball out at arm's length. She pointed it back toward the Pokemart ceiling; a red beam of light darted from above the girls and inside the ball. Marie put the Pokeball on her belt and continued without missing a beat. Rory struggled to keep her composure, but she couldn't help herself. Here was a real-life Covenant Operative, and she was so cool that she didn't even need to look at her Pokemon as she returned it to the ball. Talk about style!

Aubrey thought it looked more conceited than controlled.

Still, Aubrey was more than eager to leave the ravaged storefront behind. Aubrey bit her tongue and followed out behind Rory. She took special care not to trip on any blasted tile or debris in their way. Her feet landing on the concrete outside was one of the most relieving sensations she could remember.

The three girls were back on the cold streets of Cherrygrove City. The snow had begun to fall harder; what was covered in gray was now buried under a sharply white blanket. The previously gentle snowflakes had grown to a constant spray of ice that pelted their faces incessantly. The Chikorita began to shiver as the snow dropped onto the leaf on its head; Aubrey pulled the jacket further over the Chikorita's body and brushed the water away. Once she made sure the Chikorita was warm enough, she looked back for Rory and Marie. They were already on the next block over and showing no sign of slowing down.

"So, where are we going?" Rory asked vigorously. She failed to keep the excitement out of her voice this time; the words were those of a child going on a school field trip. "I hate to break it to you, but the whole town's deader than Disco."

"I know that," Marie shot back. "The Pokemon Center should have the answers I'm looking for."

"Sorry…Marie, right? Hate to break it to you, but Aubs and I hit up the Pokemon Center when we first got into town. It's _way_ closed."

"I assumed so at first, but that last confrontation more than belied that situation."

"Sure," Rory said. Then, after a long pause, she added, "So, what does 'belied' mean?"

Marie groaned. The girls turned the corner; the Pokemon Center once again loomed before them. "In other words, the Pokemon Center is only closed because there's something inside that someone wants to hide."

"How do you know that?"

"It's obvious. The Pokemon Center closes, but the doors never actually lock. The nurses do not have the authority to shut them down like that, because it renders the buildings unusable as a shelter in case of emergencies. The equipment can have power cut, but the doors never stay closed.

"At first, I thought that perhaps _all_ of the buildings here were locked, but I just proved that false.

"As such, the only possible conclusion to make is that the Cherrygrove Pokemon Center is locked tight for a reason."

"Right!" Rory agreed vehemently. "I was thinking the same thing."

Rory kept her mouth shut after that. She wanted to know more—What was Marie's mission?—but that would only make her look less and less intelligent in comparison. Rory knew that she was rash, and that she often acted without thinking, but that didn't make her stupid. If she was going to stick around a Covenant Operative, and quite possibly prove herself to the organization in the process, then Rory had to give Marie as few reasons as she could to leave her behind.

The two of them stopped just short of entering the Pokemon Center. Marie walked to the front entrance without missing a beat. When the doors didn't automatically zip open, she took hold of the doors' handle. She pulled lightly with her left arm—

The door's tore away from the entrance. The locking mechanism crashed to the ground in an army of blasted shards. Rory recognized molded steel along with computer chips. Evidently, someone had taken a lot of effort to make sure the door remained closed.

Suddenly, Marie's theory held a lot more weight.

While Rory examined the locking mechanism, Marie looked inside the Center itself. The lobby looked as it should; couches, a computer in the corner, and a front desk. The lights had been cleverly switched off; there was no way to see more than five feet in front of her face. There wouldn't be any sign of things being tampered with until she went inside. Which, in turn, simply meant _asking_ to be attacked by whatever lurked in the dark. Marie suddenly regretted bringing the two girls along. She hoped that all of Rory's outrageous bravery at least had _something_ to justify it.

Aubrey finally walked up to the front entrance. She looked at the snapped lock, at the excited Rory, and then at Marie, who was already making her way inside. A slow crawl went up her spine.

"Hey, Aubrey?" Rory perked back up. "You look like you've seen a ghost, or something."

"Don't say that," Aubrey joked half-heartedly. "Half the time they say that on TV, ghosts actually show up, you know."

Rory pursed her lips and nodded. It was a little too serious of a gesture. "You have a good point. I'd better not bring it up again." She flashed a brave smile and turned toward the door. "Now, let's get moving!"

Aubrey's feet remained grounded. She could no longer make out Marie's silhouette inside the pitch-black room; Rory was mere inches away from being similarly invisible. There was no way of knowing what lie for them inside…what if there were more battles?

"Hel-lo? Aubrey?" Rory asked with a chiding tone. "Hurry up, already. Less thinking, more walking."

Aubrey put one foot in front of the other, doing her best not to think about what could be awaiting them. She had made her decision to follow Rory and Marie back inside the Pokemart. It wasn't some kind of set-in-stone decision, but it was what she had decided on. And again, what else was there for her to do?

And maybe this wasn't nearly as bad of an idea as it looked.

For all Aubrey knew, she could have been overthinking this whole thing. Maybe there' was just some hardware that needed to be fixed. Or maybe whatever was going on could be cleared up with a quick phone call to another city.

Hardly.

Aubrey knew in her gut that the city might be in a _little_ more trouble than that, but again, she turned the thoughts off like a light switch.

Just put one foot in front of the other. Left, right. Left, right.

Left, right.

Aubrey looked down at her feet, too nervous to look at anything else. Chikorita met her gaze and grinned.

A/N: Finish this story by the end of August? Dual internships laugh at my pitiful ideas of finishing a story by August…But! Thank you for sticking around and waiting for this chapter. I appreciate it immensely.

As always, thanks for reading, and if you think I'm doing a good job, please let me know.


	5. I: Do the research

Cherrygrove's Winter Knights

…

- "Do the research."

Growing up, Aubrey tended to be one of the more adventurous girls in her class. When the boys would throw mud at the girls they turned out to like, or when the teachers would have field trips out to the tall grass, Aubrey was the only one among her peers to not turn away in disgust. It was often just the opposite: she didn't mind a little rough and tumble play. Dirt might as well have been her best friend, if not for the Pokemon that she played with in the nursery section of the Day Care. There was very little to be afraid of in the wild, after all. Aubrey saw the world for what it was: simply a place where all beings co-existed.

After the sun went down, the world became another entity entirely.

The darkness shrouded Aubrey's bright childhood world under a veil of the deepest black. The stars came out at night, and Aubrey's parents had to live in a rural part of the country in order to get the most foot traffic from Trainers. Yet even under a moonlit sky, life seemed to wither and fade away in all directions. Things only got worse in the fall, when thunder and lightning sent Aubrey cowering under the sheets. Aubrey grew out of that habit after some effort—why was she afraid of something that the most harmless of Minun or Plusle could cause with ease?—but the fear of darkness stayed. Growing out of early childhood and into her teenage years, Aubrey had been instilled with a wariness of the inky black that fell with the sun.

Or, in this case, the same darkness that came from scaling the Pokemon Center.

Marie led the way without hesitation, as though she had been inside the complex once before. It was more than likely, considering how the governments were trying to make all of the Centers as identical as possible. Marie strode confidently through blackened corners and down narrow hallways filled with a near-tangible certainty. Rory followed close behind, her hair trying hard to act as a nightlight as it soared behind her. If Marie walked with a purpose, Rory tagged along like a toddler searching for action.

The silence had been punishing. Aubrey was used to silences, but this was absurd. Each of their footsteps echoed like an atomic explosion.

Rory stopped as they turned down what felt like the millionth corridor. They had long since left the main sections of the Center where Trainers were meant to be. Aubrey looked at the arrows on the walls and wires on the ceiling. So _this_ was what the Pokemon Center was like behind the scenes.

"Hey, Covenant Girl?"

Marie stopped walking, but she did not turn around.

"Hoy? Did you forget about me over here?"

"I remember," Marie said in a stern monotone. "I have a name. I simply prefer it when people use it."

If there was any sort of upside to the darkness, it was that Rory couldn't see Aubrey's amused smile.

Rory exhaled a dramatic huff. Her crimson hair whipped around as she cocked her head. "_Marie_," she tried again. "Are we lost?"

Marie faced the girls with a seamless turn. It was as though she were a dancer, and the turn had been coordinated to see her clothing fly with her. "Excuse me?"

"Are we _lost_?" Rory repeated the question more slowly. "It's feels like we've been down this same path for a bazillion years. If you don't know where we're going, you could at least let us know."

Aubrey assumed the darkness also hid Marie's surely comical reaction. "This is a fourth-generation Pokemon Center. All of them were constructed exactly the same, and so all of their hidden passages are also exactly as I remember them. We are very definitely on the right path.

"From now on, if you're going to follow me, I'd suggest you keep that large mouth of yours on a tight leash," Marie chided violently. "Can we go now?"

She took off without waiting for an answer. Rory grumbled something under her breath before following.

The walk began again, with Aubrey walking quickly to keep with the other girls' pace. If she were left behind, not only would she be stranded inside of the Center's criminally complex innards, but she'd also be alone.

Except she wasn't entirely alone. The Chikorita had been a perfect guest in the free transportation vehicle that was Aubrey's arms. She had been carrying the Pokemon for what felt like quite a while now, but only now did Aubrey realize just how weightless it actually was. Chikoritas on the whole were rather chubby Pokemon, with their short legs and round bodies being perfect targets for flying opponents. Yet, to her surprise, Aubrey felt absolutely no strain on her arms or her back. Not that she was complaining.

The Chikorita was also distractingly silent.

"I noticed that, too," Rory commented when Aubrey brought the topic up again. Rory kept her voice lowered, as if she were afraid Marie might overhear something. "What do you think? Is something wrong with it?"

Wrong with it?

"I mean, Pokemon usually make noises and stuff. They're alive, after all," Rory clarified. "But that Chikorita…it's a bit quiet, that's all." She put a finger to her lips, but thoughts didn't seem to come as quickly as she would have liked.

Although Aubrey had no qualms with taking care of the innocent Pokemon, she herself had a few problems with these circumstances. The Chikorita must have been left out intentionally. Why else would it have been left in the cold if someone weren't planning on rescuing it later? And if so, perhaps Aubrey was simply stealing someone else's starter Pokemon?

…But, if that someone were to have been a trainer—which was incredibly likely—then was Aubrey kidnapping or rescuing?

Rather than ask either of her newfound companions, Aubrey kept the question to herself. It would be something she'd ask her parents about once this was all said and done.

The three of them turned through what felt like the umpteenth corner. Unlike the other times, however, they appeared to be getting somewhere. Aubrey could hear moving gears coming from further down the darkened corridor. She and Rory stopped to listen while Marie continued onward in a never-ending display of bravery. Bravery or bravado; Rory was starting to make a decision on that.

"It's the wireless Internet generators," Marie said. Her voice echoed as she continued down the hallway with a faster pace. It was as though she had discovered purpose. "The Wireless is the first thing to go down in a crisis, in order to divert power to the Pokemon Center's primary facilities. Whoever's in here is trying to communicate to someone outside the city."

"And…rather than wait for back-up, you're going to barge right in and ask for the 411?"

Marie halted in her tracks. "In case you were wondering, there _is_ no back-up. This city sent out a warning beacon when its gates closed, and I was the Covenant operative sent."

"True, but you do have someone that could help out. Namely, me," Rory said nonchalantly. "So, don't you think we should pause and think of a plan first? I'd like a plan."

"I like this idea," Aubrey said. Her voice squeaked out like a Pikachu's whisper.

Marie waited for the Chikorita to agree. When it didn't, she almost felt disappointed.

"Fine. Then here how the plan is going to work," Marie turned around. Her jacket billowed out from under her. Aubrey was reminded of Rory's crimson hair, and suddenly realized she was the only one without some kind of stylish…billowy _thing_.

"I'm going to go in with Emolga. _If_ there are any people that need assistance, you will go to help them. No Pokeballs fly until I give the signal. Fair?"

"Like love and war!"

"And you…Aubrey, was it?"

Aubrey nodded.

"You do _nothing_. Your colorful friend has some skill…hopefully," she added, "But you're a civilian. Anything that happens to you would lead to _my_ being penalized, and I would like to see more of the world before that happens."

"That's right, Aubs," Rory danced between the two girls with happy marching steps. "Just let us do our thing. We're gonna save the city! Just you watch."

Why did that sound so jarringly untrue?

A brief pause passed in the corridor. Marie returned her attention to their destination, moving with a pronounced purpose. This time, the other girls made an effort to stay close behind.

Within a manner of seconds, they had come to the door of the hour. Light shone from underneath, almost like a gateway to heaven in contrast with the near pitch-black hallways. Aubrey glimpsed above their heads: large wires extended through from the room and out into the rest of the Center. The simple sounds of machinery had grown into the definitive groans of machinery. As Aubrey stood perfectly still, she could feel a gentle breeze from hardware fans brush past her legs.

Rory jiggled the metal knob. When she looked to Marie for a suggestion, the Covenant operative was already one step ahead. Marie's pulled her left arm back slowly. Her legs went into a braced horse stance. Aubrey didn't understand until she saw beams of light from the room bounce off of the arm; it was the metal one Marie had displayed back in the Pokemart. Rory dived against the wall with a fraction of a second—

With a world-shaking crash, Marie punched the door and sent it flying backward, now decorated with the violent indent of a teenage girl's fist. Golden light poured out and singed Aubrey's eyes. Her nerves finally reached their peak: Aubrey looked away and braced every muscle in her body. If a battle was going to happen, _this_ time, she would be more than prepared.

Instead of a commotion of Pokeballs erupting and Trainers shouting commands, the air was filled with the same whirring noise of machines, and then an eerie silence.

"…Interesting," was the only thing to leave Marie's mouth.

"You can open up, Aubs!" Rory gave Aubrey a playful push. With her muscles braced and her arms growing more and more tired, Aubrey found herself almost tumbling against the wall. "There's nothing in here," Rory said. She put her gloved hands on her hips and strutted into the light. The intense shades of red in her hair almost stung Aubrey's eyes a second time. "Looks like it was all a wild goose chase.

"…Marie, that's the part where you correct me," Rory added. Aubrey detected a tinge of hope in her comments.

Enough time had passed for Aubrey to be certain that nothing would jump out at them. She took tentative steps into the room, and watched carefully as the light first hit the leaf on the Chikorita's head, then the puffs on her jacket, and then finally washed over her entire body. Aubrey began to wander the surprisingly large space, hoping to find something that would explain the situation. Rows of unfamiliar hardware lined the walls, while an infestation of wires covered the ceiling. Nothing looked familiar. Worse than familiar; Aubrey hadn't seen anything like this in her entire life.

"It's like being in an alien spaceship," Rory drew out the words. She craned her head back to try and follow the power lines above them. "What does a Pokemon Center need with all of this?"

"It's the server room," Marie's voice boomed from opposite end of the room. "Every modern Pokemon Center has one. The hard drives in the wall store data on what Pokemon utilized the facilities, when, and for what purpose. The facilities back up their data into here every hour, twenty-four hours a day."

Marie, standing on her tiptoes, placed a hand on one specific cord on the ceiling. She walked forward slowly, following it as she went.

"This isn't a power line," she said. "And it isn't a computer cable like the others. And as we already know, this Center _was_ broken into. Which leaves one possibility…"

Marie's deduction proved accurate; the cable split from the rest and curved into the wall. Landing back on her feet for a brief moment, Marie gave the wall a gentle kick. A wall-colored panel fell through and collapsed, echoing the sound of cheap plastic as it went. The cable connected into the cubby hole, then back down to something Aubrey _had_ seen before in her short life: a laptop.

Before Marie could finish giving the obvious explanation, a new voice called from through the hallway.

"You're going to put that back the way you found it," said the boy.

As he entered, Aubrey could tell instantly that he was a Trainer like the rest. She didn't have to be a rocket scientist to know that much, between the beanie with the generic Pokeball logo, and the way his Cherrygrove High School messenger bag hung low by his cargo-jean-covered legs.

The boy pushed the frames of his olive-shaped glasses as he faced Marie. "That's not what it looks like, I promise you. If you pull that plug, you'll destroy everything I've been working on."

"What have you been working on that involved breaking into a Pokemon Center?" Rory interjected. "Hacking the government? Planting some deadly virus into the city? Torrenting 'Everyday Time Scale's new CD? Huh? Answer the question!"

"I don't have to answer anything," the boy recited calmly.

"Have it your way, then," Marie said coolly. Her leg rose as she went back to the laptop—

"The city went on lockdown after a Pokemon made the healing hardware crash," the boy started again, this time racing through his words. His tone lay somewhere strange, between a panicked frenzy and an uncaring drone. "The rest of my class went back home because the police said it was being taken care of, but it obviously wasn't. So I went to investigate."

"And that meant copying the records from the Pokemon Center," Marie seemed far from convinced. "You _do_ realize that if I were to report this to my higher-ups, you could land in a federal prison."

"That's right!" Rory pointed an over-excited finger. "That's a Covenant of Light operative you're talking to, so stop cracking wise and sober up!"

"I'm not lying! There were Cipher grunts all over the city, so believe me, I didn't want to go out any more than you did. But when Lanette said she needed anything I could get my hands on, I thought—"

"Wait."

Aubrey found herself smiling, against all other logic. Marie's voice was like any other girl in her class, but for whatever reason, this teenager could command legions with just a cough. The boy jumped out of his skin at her sly order. Aubrey suspected she let the boy just wait there for a moment out of cruel fun.

"Are you telling me that you know Lanette?"

"I do, but it's complicated. I can't tell you anything—"

Marie's foot was inches away from the laptop screen—

"B-but I can take you to her if you want."

Marie sighed, like a fed-up parent. "You're lying. Lanette lives in another country. Don't throw names around if you haven't done the research—"

"She's at my friend's house right now. Lanette was coming here to stay with one of my friends, but I was the only one that knew how to work computers, and so I went on my own—"

"Friend? Lanette doesn't have friends. What would she be doing across the planet? And give me a better excuse."

"She _is_ seeing a friend. He's this guest teacher in my school."

"Is that really the best you've got?" Marie tilted her neck and sighed. "I'm going to count to three."

"I don't know his last name. He's only a few years older than us. Probably college, at the latest."

"One…"

"His name is Wally. He's got this ridiculous hair, and I think he's from Hoenn because of the accent, but I can't be sure. I've only had a few conversations with the guy, so that's really all I know!"

Aubrey tightened her hold on Chikorita. If this came to blows, could she do anything she hadn't done before?

Thankfully, Marie's foot landed back on the ground safely. The boy showed no sign of relief, however.

Aubrey scanned his face in the inbetween seconds. He couldn't be much older than she was; premature whiskers poked out at his chin, and his lanky arms dangled from awkward shoulders that belonged on a man. But it was his eyes that stopped Aubrey's inspection and sent her stare diving into Chikorita. His baby-blue eyes lit up the room in a way the bland overhead lights of the pedestrian Pokemon Center could never dream of.

"That sounds better," Marie said. "You're taking me to see Lanette and Wally. Right now."


	6. I: We Will Meet Again

Cherrygrove's Winter Knights

…

- "We will meet again."

Aubrey had never been in love with a boy before.

She had heard the stories, of course. TV, movies, books, video games, and music and even her friends at school all told soaring stories of love that conquered all, love that could overcome anything, love that was mighty and just and the only thing right in an increasingly-evil world.

It was all very pretty to think about, but for a thirteen-year-old girl, none of it could hope to ring true. Boys in Aubrey's classes had known her since kindergarten, and vice versa. Mitch the Nose-Picker and Billy the Homework Copier weren't the dashingly handsome gentlemen from the stories. They wouldn't sweep her off her feet in some majestic fashion; the former would probably pick his nose, and the latter would copy someone's homework. That was the world Aubrey lived in.

...But this boy was different.

The four of them walked hastily down the black corridors, each seemingly lost in his or her own thoughts. Rory marched like a soldier, increasingly proud of her ineffective actions, while Marie never seemed to feel any sense of satisfaction at a job well done. They were worse than two sides of a coin; they were two continents on opposite edges of a planet. Aubrey wanted to say something to break the tension, but didn't know where to begin.

For starters, as much as she hated to admit it, she hadn't known these people for longer than it took her to write a decent school paper. But at the same time, something about Rory and Marie struck her differently from her other friends. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. Aubrey found herself laughing alone; she was walking through the dark corridors of a government facility on lockdown, with a Chikorita in her arms, and wondering what about this was different from the norm.

"What are you cackling at over there?" Rory asked mockingly. Her spitfire ponytail whipped around. Even though Aubrey couldn't see Rory's expression in the darkness, she knew there was smile directed her way.

…And then Aubrey's thoughts were back on the boy.

"I'm Paddy," he had said. Marie wielded her basically-bionic arm like live ammunition, maintaining a grip on Paddy's shirt collar as they began the lengthy exit.

"I don't care what _your_ name is," Marie had said back. "But if you're lying about Lanette, I'll skin you alive. I'm sure you care about _that_."

Aubrey and Rory hadn't said a word, but their last traded glance had said it all. Marie was one of those girls that needed a chill pill. Sure, Paddy might have been a bit suspicious, but Rory wasn't one for skinning boys, dead or alive.

Footsteps came from further down the hall. Breath became short; Aubrey's lungs forgot how to function. Had they been followed?

"Don't look at me," Paddy responded to the unspoken question. "I'm alone, and I made sure I wasn't followed."

"Shut it, Panty."

"Paddy," he corrected.

"I know what I said," Marie barked as she pulled him behind her, nearly slamming him against the wall in the process. Her trained eyes watched as the corridor before them slowly lit in a dim yellow glow. When she squinted her eyes, Marie could make out the four bright points. Flashlights.

Was that bad news? Or perhaps just the proper authorities, come at last?

At the mere thought of something making sense today, Aubrey rolled her eyes and pursed her lips. _Of course_ they weren't police. Not that she had any answer herself, but—

"They're obviously the police!" Rory cheered like a buffoon. "It's our ticket out of here! Come on!"

The red blaze took off like a rocket. Marie reached out to grab her, but was less than a fraction of a second too late. "Rory, you moron!" She bellowed after her.

As Rory ran, the figures Marie could barely make out suddenly became clear. She could make out the silhouettes of five grown men, four with flashlights and clad in black, with the fifth dressed more casually, in a sweater and jeans. The centerpiece to their ominous ensemble was a girl their age; her long golden hair blended in with the dull glow of the flashlights. The girl was far too well-dressed to have been lost in the Pokemon Center like they almost were. Perhaps she was lost outside? Or perhaps Cherrygrove's Police were evacuating and finally getting a move on with…with _whatever_ was going on?

"Hey! Over here!" Rory waved a gloved hand.

The footsteps ceased. The flashlights hovered in the air like lights of a supernatural craft.

"My friends are a little ways behind me," Rory announced. "_So_ glad you made it here, though. I was starting to think that this city was totally kaput, or something."

Rory stood with her arms to her side and her hair falling down her back and across her shoulders, letting the light wash over her. Why were they taking this long to say something? Maybe she wasn't supposed to be here, and the police were making a report.

…Wait. This wouldn't jeopardize her standing as a Junior Leader, would it?!

She opened her mouth to ask—

The lights vanished.

As she waited, alone in the cold and inky dark, Rory realized that she might have been a little too quick to action.

Pitch black surrounded her in all directions. She turned around and tried to find Marie and Aubrey again, but even though they were only just behind her moments ago, they might as well have been miles away.

"Aubs? Marie? Where are—"

"Hit the deck!"

Rory pitched forward and onto her front as the white light exploded onto the ceiling. Marie reached out and caught the returning Pokeball with ease. Emolga burst forth, spreading it wings to crash against its opponents. Flipping over and scrambling to get off of the battlefield, Rory watched the combatants with frightened eyes. Two blue bird-type Pokemon with beaks sharp like knives dove and circled the gentle Emolga like parasites.

"Tailow," Aubrey recalled from her lessons the week before.

"Looks like some of your Hoenn buddies came to join the party," Marie scowled. Paddy remained silent. Was he watching planned events play out, or was he just as clueless and powerless as Aubrey herself?

Rory cursed at herself. If someone else had done something this stupid, she would have had a field day. "Where did they come from?"

"Waiting behind that light, no doubt," Marie suggested.

"Oh, _that's_ fair."

Emolga swerved through the sky, darting through and across its opponents, but one telling disadvantage proved impossible to overcome: the electricity discharging from its cheeks. The Tailow followed it like moths to a flame, picking and stabbing away without hesitation. The bird Pokemon struck with murderous precision. Aubrey shut her eyes and buried her head in Chikorita's leaf.

She had to say something. This would be the second time that Aubrey had stood by as Trainers allowed innocent Pokemon to be harmed. Even if this wasn't the right time to make a statement, Aubrey knew that there was no such thing as the right time to do what was right. She had to do something, say something. _Some_thing, _any_thing—

"Marie—"

"Your Emolga can't fight back," a man's voice called from the void. Rory knew it had to be the casually-dressed one of the five. His words were smooth as silk, his voice restrained and patient. "An electric, flying Pokemon can't do much in a restrained space without harming its Trainer. That's too bad.

"Not for us, of course," he laughed. "Glad I'm not you guys."

A shrill cry escaped from Emolga as the dual Tailow crashed into it from both sides, sending it careening onto the ground and skidding toward Rory. As though she were rebooted from fresh batteries, Rory sprung to her feet and reached for her belt. The lights from Emolga's cheeks were fading with each passing second, but they showed Aubrey all she needed to: Rory pulled up the hem of her sweater, revealing a lone Pokeball at her belt.

Rory's gloved hand danced eagerly around the shiny red weapon—

"Don't you dare," Marie barked. "I've got this."

"You know, Covenant girl, I'd love to let you have this? But your Emolga's getting turned into bird food—"

"Emolga! Aerial Ace past the birds, and then use your Spark," Marie commanded, bellowing over Rory's words.

Aubrey had all but disappeared.

"You're insane!" Paddy interjected. "Those are Shadow Pokemon. Your Emolga doesn't stand a—"

"Emolga, go. _Now._"

The three youths watched as Emolga scrambled to its feet. The Tailow hung in the air, seeming almost suspended by some other power, with eyes trained on Emolga and ready for a finishing blow. The instant that Emolga was on its feet, the two azure birds swooped in for the kill.

Paddy and Rory recognized the technique: Aerial Ace! Emolga shot past the two Pokemon in the split-second before they would have crashed beak-first into its gold fur. Its cheeks ignited into a punishing white light—

It headed straight for the opposing Trainers.

Marie and Rory could see him clearly now; the man no more than five years their senior, with his purple hooded sweater and his baggy jeans. The four men with flashlights were virtually interchangeable: they were a squadron of bald men in suits, burly in the arm and wide in the chest. As Emolga charged for them, the muscular men dropped their flashlights and cowered, arms over their faces and heads down. The man in purple—merely a boy by more mature standards—simply watched with an amused expression on his long, elf-like face. A pitiful excuse for a beard and wide blue eyes only made him younger still.

Aubrey blinked as the white light startled her. Chikorita bounced out of her arms and fell to the floor, shaking violently to scramble to its senses. Aubrey went for the Chikorita—

When the girls' eyes met, Aubrey felt as though she were staring into a mirror from another dimension.

The blond girl's lifeless expression bore into Aubrey like a drill, piercing further and further with the passing nanoseconds.

She had never seen a girl like this before. Not in school, not in town, not on long walks during vacation and certainly not at home. Her hair might as well have been composed of light; the locks of wavy blond perfection danced around the girl's collarbone without any possibility of flaw or imperfection. That said nothing about her clothing: though she was only a girl Aubrey's age, her white dress sparkled against Emolga's energy like the feathers of a swan in the moonlight. Only her shapeless legs, clad in unassuming black leggings, were fitting of a girl merely beginning her journey to womanhood.

All of this hit Aubrey an instant later, however. The first thing to disturb her was the cold, lifeless, bleak and _depressing_ stare of the girl's hollow, gray eyes—

Emolga covered itself in raw electricity as it careened for her—

"Nice try!"

The boy in purple shot his left arm into the air. Aubrey's eyes raced just past the girl's dark stare to watch his metallic fingers form a fist—

_Wham!_

Emolga crashed into a violet force field. There was no other way to describe it; the barrier of translucent violet light appeared the moment the boy raised his clenched hand into the air, and Emolga rebounded across the corridor and back toward Marie like a child's ball. The flying Pokemon had fought valiantly, but as Marie was painfully aware, Emolga's energy was spent.

The Tailow hovered like vultures, eyeing Emolga like an expensive meal.

"Enough of this," the girl finally spoke up. Her words were as icy as her disposition. "Kenneth, turn the electricity back on."

"Let the birdies have their fun!" The boy talked like this was a party and not a battle.

"Kenneth. _Now_."

"_Fine,_ fine. Don't chew my head off, princess," the boy called Kenneth said begrudgingly. He turned back to the other men and nodded. "You heard her, fellas. Hit the lights, would you?"

A moment later, the overhead lights came to life as though they had never ceased. Aubrey heard as the machinery began to boot and turn on all sides. The corridor suddenly made sense: the raw, alien hardware lining the walls and ceiling, and the exposed wires running all along the floor, told her that this was an emergency hallway of some kind. They had been walking through the emergency exits the entire time.

The realization hit Marie like a bucket of freezing water. There was no emergency exit to escape through; they were _already_ in it and trapped like rats.

Footsteps…this time from behind them. Marie turned quickly, keeping her grip on Paddy tight enough that his shirt nearly tore apart. She had expected as much: more men in suits. Three, to be exact, all with Pokeballs at their sides and all looking ready to escalate this from bad to much, much worse.

Kenneth held his breath. If Aubrey didn't know any better, she would have said that he was the one calling the shots…but then she remembered the girl standing just a few inches away from him. The one that remained motionless and emotionless during the entire fight. As Aubrey's eyes traced the scene—trapped on both sides by people that obviously weren't interested in making nice—she found Chikorita standing by the downed Emolga. There was no fear in its green eyes, but simply a look of wonder at the sudden lights.

It was a brief moment where Aubrey remembered why she loved Pokemon in the first place.

"Does that Chikorita belong to you?"

It was the voice that belonged to a woman much older than the girl it came from. A person who had seen much harder days than fourteen years could bear—

"Answer me," she commanded. "Does that Chikorita belong to you?"

"Aubs doesn't have to talk to you!" Rory barked back. "Who are you, anyway?"

The girl's head tilted as though it sat on a ball joint of a doll, twisting with no change in the deadpan facial expression. "Excuse me?"

"Well, forgive me for wondering, but you bust in here with your boyfriend and a bunch of goons. So, what are you? Team Rocket? Please, don't be Team Rocket. Those guys are the worst."

"Nothing gives you the right to demand anything of me," the girl replied coolly. "Now," she turned back to Aubrey. "That Chikorita does not belong to you, then. Where did you find it?"

Aubrey's bones locked up and had thrown away the key.

"Don't tell her anything," Rory chided, as though Aubrey had anything to hide.

The girl's eyes chilled Aubrey through to her toes and back up again.

"Did it come to you?" The girl asked. And then, "Like mine did to me?"

"…What?"

Marie sprung into action—

"Emolga, one more favor. Shockwave!"

Rory's hair stood on end. "Have you _lost it?!"_

Emolga stood on its feet, letting its wings droop and slide along the concrete floor. Its cheeks illuminated one final time, and Chikorita had just enough sense to leap away—

The wall exploded in a display of crashing rubble and exposed wires. A cloud of dust manifested from the blast, shrouding Kenneth and the curious girl in a curtain of dust and men on both sides began to panic, covering themselves as the ceiling began to cave. As the wall broke apart and parted like the red sea, Aubrey could see daylight. The piercing breeze tore at her skin like it had only minutes ago. Through this way was freedom—

Pokeballs broke against the ground on both sides! Aubrey couldn't look fast enough at their new opponents. There was a veritable army. Marie couldn't handle all of them. No one Trainer could ever—

"Aubrey."

Marie took Aubrey by the wrist and squeezed her tight.

"Aubrey! Look at me."

Marie's hazel eyes were hard as stone.

"Follow this boy," she said. "Don't let him out of your sight. Promise me that."

What was she doing?! Emolga was out of energy. She was going to get them both hurt! Marie—

"Promise me!" She barked. The dust was clearing, the Pokemon were on the verge of unleashing an onslaught—

"I promise," Aubrey said shakily. "B-but what can I—"

"This isn't a Covenant job anymore," Marie said quickly. The panic she tried to keep out of her words was quickly seeping through. "It's bigger than me, and it might be bigger than both of us, so we need to work together.

"But I know I can trust you, Aubrey," she said. "Don't prove me wrong."

"Covenant girl? Hate to break it to you, but we've got company—"

"Then I hope you're as good a Trainer as you pretend you are," Marie called back. Aubrey wanted to turn her head and get a final look at Rory, maybe even see if Rory was all that she had claimed herself to be, but there was no more time. And then, to make it all worse, Marie let go of Paddy's shirt, took his hand, and put the two of theirs together—

"Please, don't do this," Aubrey begged through the nervous, electric charge running in her fingertips.

Marie shifted her attention to Paddy. "Lanette's not far, is she?"

"Less than a mile. And we can take side-streets," he said. "I can keep her safe."

"Good. Get out of here, both of you."

Aubrey couldn't take this. She might have just met these girls, but she wasn't about to leave her friends to a slaughter in the ruins of a Pokemon Center, and she certainly wasn't going off with this boy she doesn't know, no matter how much she wanted to. Aubrey felt herself starting to beg, but didn't even care. "Marie—"

"Go!" She barked, and this time, Aubrey's muscles responded without asking the brain for permission. She and Paddy moved through the rubble and out onto the cold, frost-covered pavement of the outside world. Chikorita bounded to Aubrey's side and into her arms the second its feet hit the ice.

Rory removed a Pokeball and stood to one side, while Marie and the exhausted Emolga faced the other. Despite the grim realities of the situation, Rory obviously lived for the battle; her battle pose, with the Pokeball out to one side and her knees angled and bouncing, came out of a TV show.

"It's been nice knowing you, Covenant girl," Rory joked. She looked around at the opponents that Aubrey could not see, for better or for worse. Her head turned one inch too far, and her eyes landed on those of the frightened Aubrey.

Rory's gentle smile appeared for the very first time. Like a warm blanket against a frozen winter night. Raw heat…Aubrey recognized it as courage.

"We will meet again," Rory said. "It's okay! Trust me."

Paddy took hold of Aubrey's hand and gripped it tight. Her heart nearly ripped out of her chest and into Chikorita's skull—

"We need to move," Paddy said. His words caressed her ears like lavender. "Your friends have this covered. Come on!"

Aubrey turned and headed down the unwelcoming streets, Chikorita in her arms and strange boy at her side. Snowflakes tickled her nose and chilled her fingers, just like they had when she first set out this morning.

Aubrey didn't look back until they had turned a corner, and the Pokemon Center was a memory.

…

End Part I: Innocent Starter


	7. II: Enter the Winter Knights

Cherrygrove's Winter Knights

…

- Enter the Winter Knights

Questions raced through Aubrey's mind, darting and careening like stars and crashing into oblivion. Just moments ago, a simple day morphed into a small-scale war with two of her newfound friend caught in the middle. That said nothing of the Chikorita that followed her, whom she carried whenever it didn't, and whom the girl with deathly-cold eyes claimed to know about. It was all so outlandish and fantastic—

But all Aubrey could focus on were the four fingers intertwined with hers.

Moments ago, she had felt the biting chill of winter frost as it tore through her parka and stocking cap. All of that seemed to vanish in an instant; the warmth between her and Paddy obliterated any semblance of the season. As she walked, she had half a mind to take off her jacket. Though thankfully, she was anxious, not stupid.

Chikorita had taken to walking on the sidewalk as soon as they had arrived at the side-streets. Suburban houses—the identifying mark of deceptively-suburban Cherrygrove City—surrounded the three on all sides, with the skeletons of once-majestic trees leering at them from above like vultures.

Aubrey's right arm dangled joyously, in time to the rhythm in its own mind, while the two walked with a brisk pace.

Of course, Aubrey had no idea where they were going.

There were the questions again.

Why had Marie trusted her, after knowing her for so little a length of time? Who were those men, and why were they _waiting_ for their small group of barely-high-school girls?

…The more obvious questions—the ones pertaining to the girl with eyes like death—would go unmentioned. There were more important matters to discuss at the moment anyway. For instance, she could say something..._anything_ to Paddy.

_Anything._

Aubrey struggled to bring words to her lips, but the fight was impossible. Every time she worked up her vocal chords, they lost their nerve at the moment of truth. Paddy simply marched onward, peeking behind them every few minutes or so, and otherwise moving only to pull his hat down farther.

He was, at the same time, mundane and breathtaking.

Aubrey suddenly noticed the lean boy was only wearing a T-shirt in sub-zero weather. Though the instant she realized she had been looking at him, Aubrey shot her eyes back down and glued them to Chikorita.

"Y-you look cold," she said to the pavement. And when she worried if she had said it too quietly, Aubrey added, "You forgot to bring a jacket."

"It's somewhere in the Pokemon Center lobby," Paddy shrugged. His words left trails of white smoke in the air. "I was planning on getting it when I left, but…what happens, happens. We couldn't exactly run back to get I," He laughed.

"Are you cold?" Aubrey hated herself instantly. Idiot girl. Of _course_ he's cold.

"It's not that bad," Paddy lied. "We're almost there, anyway."

"Lanette's house?"

Paddy noticed the way the name didn't exactly roll off of Aubrey's tongue. "You don't know Lanette, huh? She's one of Bill's friends. You know Bill, right?"

Deadpan stare. Paddy smirked, and Aubrey couldn't tell if he was laughing with her or at her.

"Lanette and Bill worked on the Pokemon Box software together," he explained slowly. "You know what _that_ is, right?"

Another strike out. Aubrey's blank expression sent a full laugh through Paddy's core. His smile was so happy, so _true_, that Aubrey couldn't help but gawk.

"You're not a Trainer, are you?" And when Aubrey shook her head, "To be honest, I didn't think so. I mean, you've got that Chikorita, so I figured you might be a rookie, but you just didn't look the type."

"There's a type?" Was that an insult or a compliment or nothing at all? And why did Aubrey suddenly want to know the meaning behind everything he said? If Rory had told her that, Aubrey would have shrugged it off. But from Paddy..

"Well…your friend with red hair talked like this wasn't exactly her first time holding the line. And then that girl with a Snag Machine's probably never been to a party in her life. As if having one of _those_ doesn't make her a Trainer automatically.

"When I saw you, I knew you were different."

Aubrey's lungs vanished from her chest, only to be replaced with electric bursts of adrenaline.

"Oh, sorry," Paddy cut himself off. The slightest hint of a blush spread across his long cheeks. "I shouldn't be talking about your friends like that."

Without warning, Aubrey found herself giggling like a buffoon. Paddy didn't have any reason to shut himself up. Though Rory and Marie were nice girls, everything Paddy said was entirely correct. Even the bit about Marie needing to go to a party; Marie was a bit older than her, but she was years more mature. Maybe decades, even. Though, Aubrey realized she probably had to be to become a Covenant agent.

…Wait.

"What did you mean?"

Paddy stared at her, without a single muscle in his flawless face budging even slightly.

When Aubrey froze harder than the ice in the gutters around them, Paddy laughed. "Oh! Sorry, I forgot I'm wearing this hat. Here," he pulled up the edge of the beanie and wiggled his bushy, black eyebrows in a curious response.

Aubrey was willing to bet dollars to donuts that she looked like a complete idiot now…Stupid giggle reflex.

Wait. She had a question, didn't she?

"You said Marie had a…a machine?"

Paddy's brow furrowed. He pulled the hat back down.

"The thing on her arm," Aubrey continued. "That's what you're talking about, isn't it?"

There was an awkward pause. Or at least, Aubrey _felt_ awkward. What exactly made a pause awkward? Was it that they weren't saying anything? OR did the conversation just die? Conversations can just die, Aubrey tried to remind herself. Not everything is awkward. Or was he getting tired of her asking questions and laughing like a nut?

…And why was Chikorita smiling at her? She wanted to tell Chikorita to mind its own business, but that would make her look rude, and—

"Hey, we're here," Paddy said.

The two of them had stopped in front of an older Victorian-style home, with two stories, a balcony, and a roof decorated with mahogany shingles. Aubrey realized that they had turned three corners and crossed who knew how many streets; they might as well have been in another county. Aubrey recognized nothing, but somehow, she was unafraid.

"Is this your house?" She asked. It hadn't seemed as naïve in her head.

"No way," Paddy said. "We're back this way." The two strode down the empty driveway and opened the unpainted wood fence. Aubrey expected some kind of backyard area, like the kind her parents let the Pokemon in their care run around in. The driveway and brief trail _to_ the would-be backyard had all of the signs: marvelous flowers lining the concrete, grass that enjoyed care and constant watering. The white sheath of snow burying the greenery only complimented it more.

Rather than seeing the wide-open space that she expected, Aubrey saw a green shed with more plants potted around the perimeter. Paddy led her through without stopping, and for a brief second, Aubrey wondered if this _wasn't_ such a good idea. Chikorita stuck by her calf like a guardian angel.

Paddy rapped his chafed knuckles against the paint-chipped door.

"Who's it out there?" A girl's voice replied. Aubrey noted the slight accent, but couldn't quite place it. It wasn't thick enough for Unova, but it wasn't normal enough for Kanto…

"It's your brother, supergenius," Paddy groaned. "Open the door."

Five locks clicked back, followed by a chain falling, and finally a very loud 'beep'. The door pushed itself away from the door; Paddy shoved it gently and walked inside. Aubrey's legs moved on their own; this boy could have stabbed her right then and there, and that would have been all she wrote.

"Paddy, what's that girl doing here? Are you taking in strays, now?"

Aubrey certainly did _not_ look like a stray.

"Excuse Maggaly, she's a bit...toxic," Paddy searched for the words.

Aubrey tried to look at the entire space in one go but found herself overwhelmed. The shed had been converted into a livable space: the far right corner was a counter-top with a sink, burners, and a mini-fridge; desks lined the two longest walls, and one in particular had been bombarded with computer equipment the likes of which Aubrey had never encountered. The far right corner, on the other side of the room, had a staircase leading to a lower level.

"Oy! I'm talking to you!" The girl said again. Aubrey turned to the figure seated behind the computer gear. Large, black-framed glasses covered her bulbous black eyes. Her golden-brown locks fell in whatever order they chose, making Rory's ponytail look orderly in comparison. When the girl opened her mouth again, Aubrey noticed a gap in her front teeth and freckles on her cheeks.

"Does she do anything besodes stare all day, Pads?"

Paddy closed the door behind them, making sure not to catch Chikorita's leaf accidentally. "Aubrey, this is Maggaly, my lovely sister."

"Charmed, dearie!" Maggaly said. Aubrey still couldn't place the accent—

"She _is_ a starer, ain't she," Maggaly went on. "Paddy, you choose the strangest girls."

"Maggaly lives with my grandparents in Almia," Paddy explained. His pained expression was comical, though Aubrey swallowed the incessant laughter. "She's down here for the break. Don't mind her, Aubrey. She's harmless."

"Aubrey? Pretty name for a gawking girl," Maggaly said. And then in a more serious tone, "She's not a cop, is she?"

"Not even close," Paddy put his bag on the other desk and removed his computer. Aubrey stood frozen, unsure of what she could and couldn't touch. "I found her with some of her friends snooping around the Pokemon Center."

Wait. Hadn't Paddy been the one snooping?

"I figured they were just some kids, but they ran into Kenneth and Gracie. You can imagine how that ended."

...Gracie?

"How did it, then?" Maggaly asked, craning her head back to watch her brother. "Do tell. Oh, how I love your adventures."

Why did that sound just the slightest bit sarcastic?

"Her friends got cornered, basically," Paddy explained. "Kenneth's guys sent out Shadow Pokemon, because…you know, he's Kenneth. One of her friends told Aubrey here to run for it with me, so...here we are."

"We just listen to random girls in Pokemon Centers, then?"

"Let me finish," Paddy held up a patient hand. "Get this. Aubrey's friend had a Snag Machine."

"...That's a plot twist."

"It gets better. Both of her friends knew what a Shadow Pokemon was."

"So when they told you to take Princess Gawk here, you obeyed like a lap dog. Sounds about par the course for you."

Paddy appeared unfazed by Maggaly's rudeness. Aubrey wondered, was that her being rude, or was that just the way people from Almia acted? Were they called 'Almians', for that matter?

"I didn't get our cover blown, in case you cared," Paddy continued. "Where's Lanette? It's kind of urgent."

"Where she always is," Maggaly said. She turned back to whatever she was working on, but not before looking Aubrey up and down like a store mannequin. "If you're taking your pet down with you, please don't make a mess of anything."

"Chikorita's actually mine," Aubrey began. "I found it on the—"

"I was speaking to Paddy."

Well, that conversation ended quickly. Paddy gave her his most apologetic stare—complete with pursed lips—and waved her toward him. Chikorita trotted behind as the two descended the short metal staircase, accompanying Aubrey's feet-first-into-ice-water sense of discovery with a soothing clip-clop of its childlike feet.

The cellar was only slightly bigger than the main room, and that didn't say much. There was space enough for two rooms: the main one she found herself in, and the one branching off of it. Aubrey stole a peek inside at the bunk beds, open suitcases, and almost hilariously-tiny bathroom inside.

"Lanette?" Paddy asked the seated figure seated toward the wall, typing furiously on two keyboards across three monitors. Aubrey caught herself 'gawking' again, but it was hard not to. Wasn't that kind of set-up only used in movies?

"She's in her own world," Paddy answered her silent question. He let go of her hand—the one Aubrey hadn't even noticed him take a second time—and went to Lanette. He prodded her small, chubby shoulder gently.

"I've almost got the upgrade done, Maggaly. If you're still hungry, go in the cabinet."

"It's me," Paddy said. Like lightning, Lanette stood up, threw down the goggles that Aubrey hadn't noticed before, grabbed his hand, and shook it vigorously. Paddy rocked back and forth as Lanette worked his bony hand like a lumberjack.

"Great work, Paddy! I knew I could count on you," she said. Lanette turned to Aubrey—because in a space this confined, 'hiding' was impossible—and nodded her head gently. "Find a new recruit out in the cold?

"Come over here, what are you afraid of?"

Aubrey hopped to attention, hustling to close the distance between them. Though Lanette looked to be no older than Marie, her smile was warm like a fire on a cold night. Aubrey felt relieved instantly, though she knew she still had no reason to be.

"I-I'm Aubrey," she said. And when nothing came to fill the silence, she added, "That's not my Chikorita, because I'm not a Trainer. I just found it..."

"It?" Lanette asked, almost accusingly. "You don't know if it's a boy or a girl?"

Aubrey struggled to be more polite than usual. She was in a stranger's home, after all. "I never looked. It isn't mine..."

"Got that part the first time," Lanette said. It was curious; had Rory or Marie said the same thing, it would have been judgmental. Had Maggaly upstairs said it, it probably just would have been business as usual. But when it came from Lanette, it was nothing judgmental in the least. She was simply gathering information.

It was the kind of laid-back demeanor that Aubrey could trust.

It reminded her of her mother.

"Better question, Aubrey," Lanette continued. "Why are you here?"

How was she supposed to answer that? She started slowly. "My friend—"

"Wrong answer," Lanette corrected instantly.

"I don't understand." It was the truth.

Lanette folded her arms as she entered a very motherly 'lecture' mode. "If you're going to be one of us, you have to commit. You can't be here just to be here. The five of us—well, three right now—are in this until the end. If you're not, then I'm sorry, honey, but you'll have to see the door."

"Lanette—"

"Them's the breaks, Paddy," Lanette continued. "And really, did I say anything wrong?"

Paddy bit his tongue and shoved his hands in his pockets. He went from seeming bold and brave to appearing like a young boy. Or more aptly, the young boy he actually was. It told Aubrey something dangerous: there was actually _something_ going on besides what she'd just gotten out of. Or perhaps the two were intertwined. Or maybe they were the same thing. She couldn't be sure.

But Marie had sent her here. Marie had told her to stay with Paddy. And it wasn't like Aubrey exactly had a problem with that.

She opened her mouth to ask the question that changed her fate—

Her stomach spoke first, rumbling like the mightiest earthquake. She felt a flow of blood rush to her face as Paddy smiled and bit his lip at her. Good god, did he have to do that lip-bitey thing?

"Someone's hungry," Lanette said cheerily.

"I haven't eaten today, ma'am."

"None of that 'ma'am' business! It's just Lanette."

"Lanette, I have a question—"

Lanette nudged Paddy toward the staircase, overpowering Aubrey's small words. "Paddy, get her a sandwich or something. Her stomach's gonna start chewing at itself!

"I'm sorry, hon," Lanette continued as Paddy obeyed orders silently. "What was it you wanted to ask?"

"I…I just…"

Aubrey shifted gears at the last second. No 'Marie' questions. What did Aubrey herself want to know?

"What do you really do here?"

A pause…but not the awkward kind.

The welcoming kind.

Lanette put her hands on her waist as her eyes lit up like beacons into the night.

"Sit down, Aubrey. This might take a minute."


	8. II: The Gale Remains

Cherrygrove's Winter Knights

…

- The Gale Remains

"Aubrey, you're a smart girl, right?"

Aubrey nodded, her mouth too full of delicious food to bother with words. Paddy didn't have to ask if she was hungry or not; in the time it took Aubrey and Lanette to sit on the floor and get comfortable with one another, Paddy had left and returned with a loaded peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

"It's kind of all we have left, unless you want beans and, like, green beans," Paddy had smiled playfully. "My folks didn't really stash the fridge before this all went up, you know?"

His smile was golden.

Lanette's annoyed stare—which was more annoyed like an older sister than like a superior—had Paddy sitting beside Aubrey on the carpet. Her continued glare sent Paddy scooting further away from Aubrey; he sat so close that their shoulders were almost touching, but neither of them had noticed.

Aubrey almost gave that some thought, but instead she delved into peanut butter heaven, and that was the end of that. She briefly wondered what happened to her traveling Chikorita companion, until she found it on the other side of the room, lying on the vent in a state of warm bliss.

Life was good.

Lanette grinned; it was obvious that their new guests weren't much for socializing. "While you're devouring that," she started, "I'll just get started with filling you in on what you walked into.

"Now…the story kind of starts way before you, hon. I think I was your age when Wes got the ball rolling."

Wes?

The name rang a bell. He was the boy that saved the Orre region from Team Rocket some ten years ago.

"Is that what they're telling kids in textbooks these days?" Lanette sighed. "It's not that surprising, come to think of it. Orre's not even recognized in the Pokedex. Bill and I were ordered by Lance—Lance!—to delete the country's data for traded Pokemon. It just says the Pokemon came from 'a faraway land' or something bogus?

"Anyway, getting off point. Team Rocket had nothing to do with it. They've never even set up operations outside of this continent."

Wait.

"It was Team Snagem and Team Cipher," Paddy said. "Lanette hit me with that, too."

Two teams..?

"Exactly," Lanette said excitedly. She held up two hands, almost like the scales. "See, Orre wasn't exactly a…social place? There was a lot of strife. For example! Team Snagem created the Snag Machine for the express purpose of capturing Pokemon of other Trainers.

"Team Cipher, on the other hand, created Shadow Pokemon. You've already seen a few of them, right? I mean, you haven't been taken yet, so you must have had to defend yourself from them."

Aubrey remembered the skirmish in the Pokemart, back when she had only just met Rory and Chikorita. The Metagross had tried to attack them, but Marie appeared to defeat and capture it. And when Aubrey thought hard enough, she remembered how Marie captured the Metagross with the Pokeball in her metal hand.

The metal hand…that had to be the Snag Machine Paddy talked about. And the aura around the Metagross meant it was a Shadow Pokemon.

"Shadow Pokemon have had their hearts closed off by Cipher machines," Lanette said. "The Snag Machine steals Pokemon, but it's possible to steal Shadow Pokemon and purify them. Two wrongs make a right, oddly enough.

"We don't know how a Snag Machine wound up in the hands of the Covenant, or why it's not in the hands of a more experienced operative, but that's beside the point," Lanette continued. "Wes isn't the hero you probably think he is."

In her fifth grade class, Aubrey's teachers had said Wes was the Orre equivalent of Red from Kanto. That is, just a boy that beat all the gyms and defeated Team Rocket.

"Wrong! For one thing, Wes is older than I am. Early thirties by now, at least. And he definitely wasn't an average Trainer."

Aubrey couldn't tell if the pause was because Lanette and Paddy didn't know how to explain it, or if they were simply being dramatic.

Paddy swallowed hard. "Look, Aubrey. Think about it this way: how could Wes have gotten the Snag Machine?"

He defeated their evil organization?

"Technically true," Lanette said. "He _was_ a member of Team Snagem. One of the strongest ones, to boot. They had a fight over something—we honestly don't know—and Wes blew up their base out of spite."

"But not before taking the Machine for himself," Paddy said. "He only started fighting Team Cipher because some girl he met convinced him to fight for like, justice, or something."

"Point is," Lanette finished, "Wes is no hero.

"And hey, we're on a tangent.

"Like I was saying, I was your age when this started. Wes just finished taking down Team Cipher. The Covenant of Light was just Red, Gold, and Brendan, so it's possible that they overlooked it, but Cipher grunts got into Sinnoh. Just waiting for an opportunity.

"While they were waiting to get their heart-closing-gear back, they got into Underground technology. You know what that is, right?"

"Ten bucks says she doesn't," Paddy grinned. Aubrey attempted her annoyed look, furrowing her small brow and pursing her lips, but her bulging cheeks—actually chewing was somehow just an opinion—made her look like a rabid Pikachu. Paddy's smirking only made her angrier, and then more comical.

"Actually, not knowing this just says that you're normal," Lanette said, ignoring the banter between the two. "The Underground is only actually online in Sinnoh. It's a social space that runs underneath the entire continent. Every space in Sinnoh's Underground is accessible from anywhere in the above-ground country, so it's got this massive potential for connecting the nation.

"The logic is that Sinnoh is the beta-test for the technology," She continued. "But that would be too easy. The Underground didn't see much use, because the tech needed to find people once you got down there was a bit too hardcore for normal people. These days, it's just used by corporations and drug dealers.

"Funny thing is, the Underground tech wasn't as important as we all thought. The tech that everybody knows just beams a person into the area. But the stuff on the engineering side—the hardware that creates the Underground space—isn't too difficult to create at all."

"Every space has a pre-determined Underground layout," Paddy chimed in. "The only thing the Underground hardware does is make that space habitable by humans and Pokemon. So the problem is—"

Lanette's hand flew over Paddy's mouth, nearly knocking him in the face. She sat straight up, suddenly towering over Aubrey. The excitement flared in her large eyes. If the situation were as dire as everything looked, Lanette was either really enjoying it or simply really engaged. "This is where I have to ask you, Aubrey," she started. "Why do you think I brought up all of these seemingly uninvolved scenarios?"

Aubrey seemed to be thinking hard, tilting her head and running her tongue around the inside of her cheek. When her eyes met Paddy's, it became obvious that she didn't have any clue. Her eyes couldn't stop laughing. It was like taking a test she hadn't studied for.

"It's all connected," Paddy fought the urge to laugh at nothing with her. "Team Cipher is back. They've taken Underground technology and used it on Cherrygrove. In one day, they kidnapped everyone and took them down…well, down there."

"And the fact that a Snag Machine is here tells us that there's more going on than we know," Lanette added.

But, hold on. There was a plot hole. If Marie was so important to figuring out what was going on, then why was Paddy okay with leaving her behind? She has a Snag Machine. That's the key to this.

"It was never Paddy's job to find your friend," Lanette answered. "There have been…Hmm. I'm not sure we should tell you that part yet," she added with a taut grin. "Sorry. Winter Knights only. I'm sure you understand."

Winter Knights.

Why did that sound more ridiculous than it should?

"We're Cherrygrove's Winter Knights," Paddy said proudly. "Or, to put it less awesomely, we're the only ones left to fight the Cipher grunts. Everyone else, as far as we've seen, is gone.

"We don't know what they want exactly, but lucky for us, we're a pretty well-equipped unit ourselves. Maggaly and Lanette are great behind computers, and Summer and Leaf are basically our offensive units. If you want to call them that."

"Leaf wouldn't mind," Lanette laughed. She noticed that Aubrey wasn't exactly thrilled.

Though in Aubrey's defense, she had just walked into what looked like a warzone.

Paddy looked ready to move a hand toward her, but stopped short. "I know it's a lot to take in," he said.

And yeah, it _was_ a lot.

"Let me see if I have everything right," Aubrey said. Her mouth felt sticky from the peanut butter, though that might have just been nervousness and this newfound ridiculousness. "An overseas crime syndicate has kidnapped everyone in the city, so you guys are trying to fight them. The five of you."

"Just the five of us," Paddy nodded. "Though don't worry, we're not going to, like, draft you or anything. For one thing, you can't even fight."

That was insulting. True, but still.

"What my student-turned-soldier means is, you're a civilian," Lanette corrected. "We can't just go around forcing everyone around to fight. If anything, we should protect you until we get this taken care of. Or lose. Which we won't."

That all sounded fine and dandy.

Except it didn't. For one thing, Aubrey had to be home tonight. Her parents would be missing her—

"They probably think you've been taken by the Ciphers already," Lanette said gravely. "The city's been out of communications with the outside world since this morning. The world knows _something _is up. The Pokemon League won't get to mobilizing soon enough, though. By the time they get involved, it'll be too late."

'Too late'. Too late for what?

"Classified information," Paddy shrugged, giving Lanette a sidelong look. "Point is, we're on a time limit. We have a few secrets of theirs, and the fact that your friends are out there working is just another plus.

"Really, we've got more in our corner than they do in theirs. When you really think about it."

Unless Marie and Rory were taken, and Team Cipher has the Snag Machine.

"I doubt it," Lanette put the fear to rest. "What did you say your friend was? A Covenant Operative?"

"Marie's the Covenant Operative," Aubrey said. "Rory's a Junior Leader from Violet City."

"There you go, then!" Lanette stood up, bouncing on her knees as she went. For a woman old enough to be an aunt, Lanette had the energy of someone Aubrey's age. She spun her chair around and fell into it, surprising even herself when the chair didn't snap into bits. "Your friends sound like they can handle a few punks. Kenneth's all bark and no bite. Trust me on that."

Aubrey moved to stand, but a sudden alarm blared through the room, accompanied with flashing red lights along the ceiling. Paddy was there in a flash, holding her hands to keep her from crashing to the floor. Aubrey's first worry was the Chikorita: when she looked, Chikorita was up on its feet as well, darting around before coming to Aubrey's side.

"Pads! Boss-lady! We've got trouble!" Maggaly called from upstairs. Paddy raced for the staircase, though Lanette sat at her desk as though nothing had happened. She remembered what was said before: Maggaly and Lanette were just the computer people. Whatever this was, Lanette must have had more important things to deal with in the time they had.

Aubrey followed Paddy upstairs, Chikorita at her heels.

The two cousins hovered over one of the computer screens, both of their expressions worried.

"It's Summer," Paddy said.

"Well, duh. I can see that. The problem is, she's not coming from the main tower. Which is _not_ good."

"What's not good?" Aubrey asked, then instantly regretted.

Maggaly tacked away at her keyboards with fingers fit for a ninja. "Nunya beezewax," she barked.

"I think I mentioned Summer, one of our friends?" Paddy ignored Maggaly's barbs. "She went with our other friend to the downed communications tower."

"To try and warn the Pokemon League?"

"Exactly," Maggaly said. "But like I said, it's dangerous to send them together. This is just Summer's SOS alert, too! There's no telling where Leaf went off. They might even—"

"Don't finish that sentence," Paddy said briskly. He went to the desk behind them and pulled a coat from the many that engulfed the chair. Maggaly's head turned so fast, Aubrey almost jumped.

"No way, Pads." Maggaly sounded like an especially-ticked-off mother. "Nothing doing. If you go out there, you'll be taken. You can't defend yourself."

"Then I'll have to be sure not to get caught."

"This is crazy!" Maggaly huffed, this time getting out of the chair to bark at her cousin all the way from her core. "And going alone is even worse. What's supposed to happen if a Cipher attacks you? Good luck outrunning a Shadow Pokemon."

…This whole time, Aubrey's voice had tuned out.

From the moment she awoke this morning, to just now, she lacked the courage to help when Pokemon needed it most. She had seen who knew how many innocent Pokemon be forced to battle, and even though she might call Marie and Rory her friends—fast friends, to say the least—even they used Pokemon for fighting.

But suddenly, a foreign, frighteningly alien thought raced through Aubrey's mind. Team Cipher created Shadow Pokemon in an attempt to rule the world through doing something far, far worse than making Pokemon battle. The people in this room were the only ones capable of preventing all of Johto from maybe going to war.

Wasn't this a cause worth fighting for?

…No, Aubrey shook her head. There was no cause worth _fighting_ for. All she had to do was go to the head of the Cipher group and just…talk it out. Maybe ask them politely to stop fighting?

What about that girl..?

Gracie was her name?

"I'll go," Aubrey said meekly.

"If I don't go out there, then we've already lost, Maggaly! We're a team."

"But you know the rules! It's dangerous to go alone. You need a Pokemon for your protection!"

Maggaly and Paddy were too busy arguing to hear…so Aubrey used her voice.

"Paddy?"

His head craned to her like a magnet.

"I'm going with you."


	9. II: Cue the Battle Tutorial!

Cherrygrove's Winter Knights

…

- Cue the Battle Tutorial!

At age thirteen, Aubrey had stepped into a brave new world.

The cold pierced her jacket worse than before, and Chikorita had taken to riding on Aubrey's head to avoid freezing its feet in the snow. When Chikorita had leapt onto Aubrey the first time, she expected her neck to snap from the weight and for her adventure to end right then and there. As it turned out, Chikorita was light as a feather.

Thankfully, it was an opportunity for Aubrey to diffuse the tension. "Neck of steel?"

It didn't quite work.

Aubrey and Paddy had started down the barren suburban roads, this time walking in the street without any effort to conceal themselves. The sun had begun to set; in a few minutes, night would do the concealing job for them.

Unfortunately, that looked like the _only_ job Paddy didn't have to take care of.

"Wally's nowhere near you," Maggaly had said in her charismatic brogue. "There's nobody to come after you if you goof this up." She turned back to Aubrey, then to Chikorita, and gave the two of them a distinctly dissatisfied glare. The kind Aubrey gave her parents when they returned a baby Pokemon to an obviously-battle-hardened Trainer.

"And don't get me started on _you_," she scowled. "That Chikorita's a dead weight. If you try to battle with it, you'll probably end up worse than if you didn't try anything at all."

That wasn't...entirely true?

"It's fact, gawker. You don't know how to battle. Period! End of story!"

Aubrey was seconds away from doubting her sudden bravado and sentencing herself to hiding out in this makeshift bunker—

"I can show her how," Paddy said. His voice seemed to have a run-in with puberty in that very moment, going from carefree and boyish to lower, concerned, and...though Aubrey felt curious thinking it, _certain_. "If anything happens, I can teach her."

Maggaly's deadpan could turn a man to stone. "You're kidding," she sighed.

"Are we going to stand here and argue, or are we going to _do_ something? Our friends are in danger."

"I—"

"Come _on_, Maggaly!"

The pigtailed girl grew quiet. Anyone could see that she had been veto'd; Maggaly wiggled her freckled nose in annoyance.

"Don't forget to turn on your tracker," she had said defeatedly. And with that, Paddy went into the frosty outdoors. Aubrey and Chikorita followed like meek, unsure, and all the same, entirely-willing soldiers.

Aubrey's walk had taken on a stiff quality. Her knobby knees seemed to bend too quickly or too late. Her arms wouldn't move back and forth unless she told them to, and even then, Aubrey looked like a badly-programmed machine. Chikorita lying on her head only made things more awkward; she moved her head as though it were on a pole.

"You don't have to be so tense," Paddy said, putting his hands into his jacket pockets. The jacket obviously wasn't his; it was meant for a man at least twice his size. It could have been a thick, black trench coat on Paddy's lithe frame.

"It's my Dad's," he shrugged. "He wouldn't mind me using it."

"Your dad," Aubrey paused. "Is he..?"

"Mind if we don't get into that?" Paddy said a little too quickly. He noticed it, too. His deep breath created a cloud in the icy air.

"I don't mean to snap," Paddy sighed. "I just don't really want to think about where my family or my friends are. It might be kinda distracting."

Aubrey could imagine that. If Paddy stopped to worry about his loved ones, he might start to doubt himself. She knew about _that_ emotion intimately.

"Well, it's more like it's against the rules."

Rules?

Lanette said that Team Cipher had only taken over Cherrygrove City this morning. Wasn't it a little early for the five of them to have rules? Or...or trackers and arguments and tactics?

Paddy smiled out of the corner of his mouth. The cold decorated his long cheeks with an honest blush.

"Sorry, Aubrey," he smirked. "Classified information."

They could now see the base of the tower, just down the street. Cherrygrove's layout played in their favor: it seemed as though every road funneled into downtown, and the radio tower formed the crux of its center.

"That's the radio tower up ahead," Paddy said.

Aubrey nodded along. "Yeah, I know."

"You've seen one before?" He paused. "Are you from Goldenrod?"

"My cousin goes to school there," Aubrey said thoughtlessly. While she had definitely been _outside_ the national landmark that was the Goldenrod City Radio Tower, security kept tourists outside. Aubrey understood why—there had been an incident back when she was a baby—and she found herself wishing that security had been here as well.

"You're telling me," Paddy groaned. "Every city has a communications tower, but Goldenrod's the only one people know about. And if you ask me, it's famous because it got attacked first."

From the sound of things, the Cherrygrove tower didn't have much security on it.

"Didn't have 'much' is being too gentle," Paddy said.

Now that they were back in downtown, Aubrey felt that walking in the middle of a road was like painting a target on her back. The lights of the radio tower were a kind of light at the end of the tunnel. And though she was with Chikorita, and walking with a boy she trusted for no good reason, nothing could tell her feet that going forward _wasn't_ a terrible idea.

"Let's stop here for now," Paddy said, tugging on the puffy white sleeve of Aubrey's jacket. They were just outside the radio tower now, and Aubrey flashed back to earlier in the afternoon, when Marie had led her and Rory into a building similarly abandoned. No lights inside, no bodies, no open entrance and very-probably no way out without going though the front way. Just like the Pokemon Center…

"And probably-definitely no back-up," Paddy laughed. He went quiet when he saw Aubrey's bleached expression.

"I'm guessing you're not just pale from the cold."

She fought to clear her throat. "If we go in there…"

"That's why I'm stopping you," Paddy turned to face Aubrey. The cold went away—no, it had never existed—and all that remained was the warmth this strange boy radiated with his every word and breath.

Get a grip, she thought.

"I'm not a fan of lying to people," he started, "So I'm being perfectly honest. We're going to run into Cipher grunts in there, and they'll have Pokemon. They're going to try and capture us."

She knew what was coming—

"I'll bet dollars to donuts that we're going to have to battle. And unless you have any other Pokemon, your Chikorita's all we've got."

Aubrey nodded. She knew the choice she'd made by stepping out here, going out into the open with him. She was putting Chikorita in unnecessary danger, and every step forward just drew her closer to that inevitable first battle.

"It's fine that you don't know how to fight," he smiled. "I can help you through that. I just want us to be, like," He paused for the word. Paddy waved his hands between them; his knuckles had gone white from the cold. "I don't know, on the same wavelength? If that makes sense?"

It made plenty.

"Cool beans," Paddy turned back toward the tower. Aubrey remained paused in the space between them for an instant longer, and when she finally snapped back into reality, she wondered if Paddy had noticed. "Let's do this, yeah?"

"Yeah," Aubrey sighed.

In a startling surprise, the door whisked open like normal. Which was quite un-normal, when Aubrey thought about it.

The Ciphers knew they were coming. That's why the doors were unlocked. This was a trap!

"Relax," Paddy said as he took tentative steps inside. "Maggaly's been tracing the Ciphers' use of Underground tech in and around this area. The door is unlocked because it'd be annoying to have to keep re-opening it for every Cipher guy that came through, you know?"

Only barely. The lights still hadn't switched on. If the tower were really idiot-proofed…

"…Then we wouldn't be fumbling around in the dark, right," Paddy mused. He reached inside his jacket pocket and removed what looked like a cell phone, but on closer inspection, had to be anything but. The small, rectangular flat of metal reminded Aubrey of a metal tile on the side of a building than any phone. All the same, Paddy pressed a button on its screen, then held it to his ear.

"Mags?" He asked. "We're inside…and something's weird. The doors work like we thought, but the lights aren't on."

"I figured as much," Maggaly's voice resounded from the plate. Paddy jumped from the volume; he held it further back from his ear, and made a face at the overly-concerned Aubrey. "The building has motion-sensor lights."

"Is that good for us or bad for us?"

Maggaly typed with the speed of the wind and the volume of a particularly enraged Donphan. "Hm. It seems like activating a light outside of the Ciphers' pre-determined trail sets off the alarm."

"Bad for us," Paddy said casually.

"Not entirely. If I know the Team Cipher—which I don't—then they'll have all kinds of firewalls up on their Underground servers. But…

"Bingo! The tower server itself is a joke. I can get the code for the pattern. You guys go in undetected, and that's the end of that, right?"

Paddy snapped his fingers. "You said Leaf and Summer are in the building somewhere, right?"

"Of course. You and Lanette never listen to me—"

"What floor are they on?"

More key-tacking came out of the not-phone. While Paddy waited, he got a glimpse of Aubrey literally turning around in circles, watching the inside of the pitch-black lobby and the empty streets with her huge, frightened hazel eyes. Chikorita turned it into some kind of comedy routine, looking in the opposite direction Aubrey was facing and turning at the same rate. They were like a wound-up clock.

"Got it," Maggaly said distractedly. "Leaf's on the move.

"Get this, Pads. Leaf's on the ninth floor, doing who knows what. Probably going through with the mission on her own."

"Sounds like Leaf."

"Lucky for you, actually," Maggaly started to rush her words. "Summer's down on the third floor. She's stationary, so she's probably still captive. If Leaf keeps their attention drawn on the upper floors, then breaking in and getting Summer should be a breeze."

"That's only if we keep their alarm system off, though," Paddy trailed off. Aubrey saw him put a finger to his lip: the universal symbol of plotting.

"Maggaly, can you turn off the alarm _and_ turn the lights on for the entire complex?"

Maggaly must have been eating something; she started to choke on the other end. "Are you out of your mind, coz? You'll blow Leaf's cover, and her phone's got to be dead or something, so I can't warn her about the metric ton of bad news that would be coming her way if—"

"That's the point," Paddy said calmly. "They'll think it's Leaf, thereby focusing all of their attention to the top floors. Aubrey and I can find Summer without having to fight anything."

"This is insane—"

"Leaf can handle coming under fire for ten minutes. That's all we'll need. Just shut the lights off as soon as my signal meets up with Summer's. Sound good?"

Maggaly went silent for a moment.

"I can give you ten minutes," she barked back. "After that, I can't guarantee that their firewalls won't trace back to us."

"Brilliant, Mags. You're the best."

"Keep an eye on the lights," she said. With that, the line went dead.

Paddy shoved the metal plate back into his jacket. Aubrey had stopped her flawless imitation of a broken clock. When Paddy turned his attention back to her, she was already staring back, hands holding each other in an awkward embrace, fumbling over and over again.

"You heard all of that?"

Most of it. Something about his other friend being nine stories up..?

"That's Leaf for you. The second time Team Rocket went after Saffron City…well, let's just say she likes to think she's a one-woman battering ram.

"It's not our problem right now, though," Paddy's eyes scanned the room until he found the lone staircase, tucked away in the corner. "How's your cardio?"

…What?

"When the lights come on, you run."

Well, if that wasn't the most informative instruction ever.

"Whatever you do, don't go some bogus other way, got me? Follow me."

If it were Paddy saying it, why did Aubrey feel like she'd follow him anywhere?

Punishing yellow light flooded the room, stabbing Aubrey's vision and springing Paddy into action—

His hand grabbed hers with a warm vicegrip, and they took off like rockets. Chikorita fell from its perch and ran alongside, its small paws proving themselves surprisingly capable.

Paddy flung himself shoulder-first against the door to the dilapidated staircase, its bronze handle and thin steps screaming in agony as the two of three of them raced higher and higher. Aubrey heard all kinds of business moving from the other floors. Men shouted words she didn't recognize in a very-recognizable, enraged manner.

As they passed the second floor landing, the door opened slowly—

Surprised men with masked faces watched as their legs tore through—

"Don't look back!" Paddy called. "One foot in front of the other!"

One foot in font of the other. Left, right, left, right.

Third floor was just before them—

Left, right, left right…

Men just a few paces behind them, and looking very much like she and Paddy weren't invited to the party—

Aubrey's heart raced at a mile a minute, her heart threatening to explode from her chest with nuclear force. The door they needed burst open at just the wrong moment, flying open with two Cipher men staring Paddy down—

"One side, fellas!"

Surprise was _definitely_ on their side: Paddy slammed himself against one of them, letting centrifugal force careen Aubrey against the second and knock both men into the wall. They bolted through the floor quickly enough that Aubrey couldn't get a handle on her surroundings. What was this? An office space? The seemingly-endless aisles of closed doors with small windows could have to anything. Her imagination didn't have the time to go wild—

"Maggaly, where are you?" Paddy shouted into his not-phone.

"I'm just behind my desk. Where are _you?_"

"Mags, I swear—"

"You're coming up on an intersection," she said in a business-like tone. "Take the left, then count down five rooms. It's the sixth, on your left. Summer's in there. Everything good on your end?"

Chikorita leapt onto Aubrey's shoulder, just in time to avoid being swiped—

"Yeah, everything's just bloody peachy-keen!"

Aubrey could see the intersection just ahead. The burning in her calves just had to be quiet, and her hand in Paddy's just had to keep itself from melting—

"Slide!"

What?

Paddy slammed on the breaks a foot away from the turn. His shoes squealed as the momentum had him sliding along the tile floor. Aubrey tripped over herself, and only Paddy's hand kept her from faceplanting and making this an especially-quick rescue mission.

"This way!"

They had made the left turn, pursuers still pursuing and light still lit up above them. Paddy counted the doors in his head as they flew through. Almost there. Almost there—

Sixth door!

"That one!" Maggaly screeched—

Paddy's foot bulldozed the entrance: the door flew back and stayed back as he and Aubrey looked desperately for the next move. But no, they were standing in an empty white room—

"Maggaly…Help? Need a little help."

"Door on your right!"

"Got it."

Aubrey moved for the door, caught up in the speed of the moment—

"Paddy, the guys behind you stopped moving. Something's up. Whatever's behind that door with Summer isn't good news."

"That's not terribly descriptive—"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up! Just…don't open it yet—"

A lonely click from the doorknob, and Aubrey stood at the entrance to the first battle of her life.

What had to be Summer—a girl with pigtails, an odd pair of red goggles, and a more peculiar outfit of blue short and a gold scarf—sat in the corner, bound with thick ropes and gagged with a kerchief. Her eyes bugged out of her head at the sight of Paddy, just before darting to the young man beside her. His hands rested in his purple sweater's pocket, and his body leaned casually on the wall.

Aubrey remembered what happened in the Pokemon Center—

"Do you hear me?!" Maggaly continued to bellow. "It's a trap! T-R-A-P! Trap!"

Kenneth smiled at the two of them, flashing his pointed teeth.

"Sounds about right," he said.


	10. II: She Knows About Timed Hits!

Cherrygrove's Winter Knights

…

- She Knows About Timed Hits!

Aubrey had only seen one full Pokemon Battle.

That's what they were, right? Not little scuffles like what her classmates had between themselves until a teacher broke them apart at lunchtime, and not a fight that ended in a capture, like Marie and the Shadow Pokemon earlier. Pokemon Battles were one-on-one bouts between Trainers, sending out combatants and shouting commands until one of them fainted. The only one like _that_, she was too young to really remember. Her cousin was involved, she knew that much. Aubrey could scarcely remember the actual Pokemon that were forced to fight, and even the face of the opposing Trainer was hazy.

But Aubrey could recall what it was like seeing the battle end. She could recall, with flawless accuracy, her first burst of sorrow. She remembered bruises, cuts, broken bones...Aubrey even remembered going home and immediately devoting her life to the Day Care, barely-infant girl that she was.

Yet, for the first time, Aubrey wondered if she had gotten the full story behind that battle.

It was a gross, embarrassing question. She felt her skin crawl every time she had thought about it in the past. But…What if that battle had been justified? After all, Aubrey was so little, she knew nothing about the cause behind it. Maybe she had been in danger, and her cousin had thrown a Pokeball as a defense?

...Did that mean battling could be the right thing to do?

With Kenneth standing in the large white room, Summer tied at a wall and Paddy behind her, Aubrey had trouble answering. Kenneth's sadistic laughter didn't even faze her.

"You're something, kiddo," Kenneth said, his eyes locked into Aubrey. Whatever emotions Paddy had created in her out of thin air, Kenneth had snuffed them out like a candle. "At noon you're with a Covenant kid and some red-headed mess...and five hours later, you're jamming around town with the Fail Brigade.

"You're one of those kids who has trouble just _running_ for them, aren't you?" He raised a thin eyebrow.

Kenneth's pocket started singing a high-pitched wail; he took out the phone and held it with enough bravado to conquer planets. "Ken here.

"Nah, she's not with me...And what do you want _me_ to do?

"Look, take it up with Gracie. I'm kind of busy," his fine features scrunched in acute annoyance. "Well, whatever. Call me if you can't find her."

Kenneth held the phone out at arm's length as he snapped it shut. "Lamesauce," he groaned. "Your friend up on the ninth floor? She's hella strong. What's with that? She's making this tower way more trouble than it's worth."

Aubrey waited for Paddy to say something back. That's how these things went, right? Villain says something, heroes say something back, and _then_ the battle begins. Paddy's silence, his stiff posture, and the determined emotion frozen on his face were the exact opposite of expectations.

"Rude," Kenneth said. "Way to not banter back at me, kids."

"I'm not here to banter," Paddy finally said, his voice back to the lower, angrier tone. If Aubrey ever got back to school, she'd have a lot to tell her friends about how boys' voices were cracking. "This is about my friend. Let her go."

"Your friend, the Pokemon Ranger?"

Wait, what?

"She's more trouble than your friend above us, to be honest," Kenneth gave Summer a once-over, and Aubrey swore it was almost _too_ friendly a glance. "There's no way I'm about to just let her go. I mean, maybe if you to were more into the banter-y side of playing the heroes, then I might have a soft spot for you.

"Luckily, I suppose there is _one_ thing you have that might interest me."

Paddy didn't mince words. "What?"

"That Chikorita right there," Kenneth pointed with a lax finger. Chikorita stood by Aubrey's leg, tall and proud. Aubrey couldn't tell if it was brave or simply oblivious. "Give it to me, and I'll let Summer go. She'll be as free to be as you and me. And hey, that rhymed! Go, me."

"You have to be out of your mind," Paddy growled.

"Don't be silly, you guys already _know_ that I'm out of my mind," Kenneth joked, bouncing himself up off the wall. Summer started to struggle again, but it was no use; when Aubrey got a closer look, there were plastic ties reinforcing the ropes. Team Cipher played for keeps.

"Now, you did kind of catch me at a bad time," he started to walk toward the exit on the opposite wall of the room. "See, I'm supposed to go help nab that friend of yours. If I leave, then I'd _definitely_ beat both of you down, but that girl up there would probably blow my pals to bits.

"Also, Gracie would be _pretty _ticked that I hurt another Chikorita Bearer.

"So...I'll do the next best thing. I'll bounce out that-a way," Kenneth jabbed a thumb toward the door, "And I'll let my buddies right behind you take care of this situation."

Paddy and Aubrey had been so focused on Kenneth that they completely ignored the men that had been chasing them. Kenneth's words hadn't been a bluff: Paddy turned to find three Cipher men blocking their path. When Aubrey followed his lead, Paddy gripped her hand tightly.

"Hey, guys?" Kenneth leaned past the youths to his fellow agents. "Shoot to kill, yeah?"

Oh, that sounded absolutely grand.

There was a painful tension as Kenneth walked out the exit, opened the door, and slammed it shut again. The instant the door had closed behind him, Paddy bolted from Aubrey's side to Summer. He removed the gag at her mouth carefully; as it fell, Summer's full lips moved with precision. "Paddy, my Styler's out of juice. There's nothing we can do to—"

Paddy had started working on her binds using a pocket knife from his jacket. "We're going to be fine."

"What are you talking about? You don't have any—"

"Aubrey?"

Aubrey had been counting the seconds.

"Remember what I told you? If I ever needed you to fight, I would help."

She remembered.

Aubrey and Paddy had made the potentially-fatal mistake of letting themselves be boxed in; they had entered the second room together when Kenneth left. Now the three Ciphers had the door swarmed, and were slowly drawing Pokeballs from their belts and pockets. Chikorita watched intently, its expression no more blank or alert than normal.

"I don't suppose you can be talked out of this," Paddy asked as he left Summer and returned to Aubrey's side. "Maybe I can convince you to help us?"

"You wouldn't pay enough," said one of the men.

Paddy shrugged. "I suppose we'll have to do this the old-fasioned way."

_Old-fashioned way_?! Paddy must have fallen off of the deep end. Aubrey and Chikorita were the most inexperienced individuals one could have possible thrown into this situation. Whatever came out of those Pokeballs would likely eat them alive—

She didn't have to wait very long. Three Pokeballs exploded against the ground: two flying bat-type Pokemon, followed by an especially-ferocious bird type with a long, pointed beak.

"Two Zubats and a Spearow," Paddy said. "I guess trash is still trash, wherever it comes from."

"Shut it!" said the same grunt from before. "Spearow, go! Tear that brat a new one!"

Chikorita raced from under Aubrey's legs before she had the chance to pull it back.

Talk about things going from bad to worse. Chikorita faced down three flying opponents, and Aubrey had worked the Day Care long enough to see what happened when grass Pokemon take on just _one_ of those types.

"Zubat! You too!"

"Get in there!'

The three opponents dived for Chikorita at the same time. Aubrey pulled her hands over her face—

Paddy was already there, holding her wrists down with both of his hands. "You can't look away! Lesson one!"

The battle began with the Ciphers seemingly having the upper-hand, but Chikorita was faster than any of them would have guessed. The small grass-Pokemon leapt and swerved around the predators, sending them crashing into walls from their own momentum. It landed on all fours, the leaf on its head flowing with grandeur.

One of the Zubats came back around—

But Chikorita was ready. It kicked out with both hind legs, clocking the Zubat and sending it against back to the wall with a painful thud.

Aubrey didn't know where this was coming from. She hadn't told it to do anything—

"Lesson two. Pokemon Battling is a bit different sitting in the drivers' seat than on TV. Chikorita's going to dodge and attack on its own."

"Then what am I supposed to—"

"It needs you to call out special attacks," Paddy rushed. "Chikorita won't be able to hold its own without some special commands."

"I don't know any attacks!"

"It's a grass Pokemon, just like any other. You need to focus."

"I don't...can't you—"

"It won't listen to me. Chikorita is _your_ Pokemon, _you're_ it's Trainer."

"I'm not a—"

Chikorita dodged the second assault, but this time, it came out markedly more exhausted. It breathed quicker, its landing saw it tumble a bit—

"Aubrey, now!"

She apologized in advance. Deep breath—

"Chikorita?"

It craned its head up in attention—

"Razor leaf! Now!

"...Please?" She added softly.

Aubrey barely understood the command herself, and were the situation reversed, she would have just stood in place and flailed haplessly. But Chikorita, already bred for battle as a starter Pokemon, had combat in its genes. Spearow led the charge, soaring with its talons spread and beak pointed into a fine point—

Chikorita twirled its leaf toward the opposition—

A volley of foliage sprang forth from behind Chikorita's body, catching the Spearow off-guard; it nose-dived to the ground to avoid meeting a gruesome finish. It would be on the ground in seconds—

"Aubrey, now's your chance!"

She had to act fast—

"Chikorita, now! Tackle attack!"

The response was instant. Chikorita raced for its nemesis, propelling itself forward like a missile. Aubrey knew firsthand how light Chikorita's body was; with speed added to it, Chikorita was _lightning_.

The Spearow had no chance—

_Wham! _The Spearow lost consciousness upon impact. Its limp body crashing to the floor was just icing on the cake.

The dual Zubats hovered, their vulture-like mentality replaced with a sudden respect. It showed in the face of their owners as well; the defeated Cipher grunt retired his Spearow wordlessly, powerless under the shameful glares of his comrades.

"In my defense?" He started.

"Don't," one of the others said. "It's just a little girl…This is embarrassing."

Aubrey felt her little-girl-self grow numb.

Chikorita scrambled to its feet, but it would be too late; the Zubats had their opening. One raced for its front, while the other came from behind, both with devilish jaws opened and wings set to maim. Paddy remained silent because there wasn't anything she could do; Chikorita was finished—

A very-audible _beep_ came behind her—

The Zubat from behind suddenly darted toward the wall, followed closely by a red bolt of light. Chikorita took the instant to leap from the other Zubat's line of fire. This was the chance it needed—

"Chikorita…Razor leaf?"

Chikorita flipped around, ready to strike the backside of its target—

Its black, olive-like eyes met Aubrey without any kind of warning. The numbness that had been growing came to a painful head as the entire image came to her. Aubrey had thrown an innocent into a kill-or-be-killed arena, and the only way out was to keep fighting. Chikorita had trusted her to keep her safe, had trusted her to get it to the proper authorities and see it live without having to harm another.

She felt its eyes boring into hers…was that curiosity or judgment?

"Aubrey! Now!"

…What would her parents say?

Paddy's came to her side, his hand returning to hers, his voice bringing her bck to reality. "Aubrey!"

The two Zubats came back down. The red dot continued to circle, but what was that..?

Paddy's words might as well have been underwater, for how well Aubrey could register them. He turned back to the other fighter in the room—

"Summer, can you land it?"

"It's a double-capture, and they're faster than back home—"

"Can you _do _it?"

Chikorita and Aubrey remained glued to one-another in their paralyzed states, unmoving and vulnerable. The longer Aubrey stared, the less guilt she felt. It was strange, but…Chikorita wasn't pulsing at her out of anger. It pulsed for the hunt; it waited for orders like a warrior. It didn't hold anything against her, but rather, Aubrey was holding herself _against_ herself. Chikorita wouldn't be angry for fighting if it _won_, or even if it _lost_, but simply if it didn't _move…_

"Chikorita?"

The small body snapped to attention—

"Behind you! Razor leaf, now!"

A potent nod came from the tiny Pokemon, and it leapt back into the world. It must have known that the Zubat was coming; it jumped clear over the flying adversary, the leaf on its head already wound up and ready to go. Zubat turned around, but it was too late; the foe knew its mistake long before the destructive leaves hit. Zubat went down in a mass of cuts and pain before retreating to its ball.

The final Zubat crashed down upon the warrior Chikorita—

"Not so fast!" Summer cheered.

The Zubat ceased its strike in mid-air. It hovered in a dazed mass, then slowly flew toward the door.

"Where are you going, you louse?!" Its Cipher trainer barked as the Zubat flew to freedom. Aubrey wondered the same question—what just happened?— as Summer came to her side. She held up her wrist, pulling a silver device tight. Aubrey recognized it: the 'phone' that Paddy had been using moments ago. It slipped into a holster on Summer's wrist-mounted gauntlet…thing.

"Pokemon Ranger Summer, stationed in Almia with just a teensy-tiny bit of experience from Oblivia, at your service!

"Thanks for bringing my spare Styler, Paddy," she said calmly. It didn't take a scientist to see that the Cipher men were afraid, having gone from commanding the situation to having no Pokemon to defend themselves with. The men backed away slowly—

Chikorita's surprisingly-vicious eyes made contact with the Spearow's owner—

The three men took off in a flurry of fear and panic, not even bothering to threaten the victors with promise of future perils. Isn't that what usually happened after a fight?

Aubrey listened closely.

"We've gotta warn the boss!"

"Are you crazy? She'll crucify us for this!"

"But it's another of those hell things…"

"What kind of Chikorita does _that_?"

"Let them run," Summer laughed. Aubrey turned back to her new allies; Summer's binds lay abandoned at the floor. "We've got work to do."

"Got that right," Paddy said quickly. "Leaf's in trouble. She's got to be on the tenth floor by now."

Summer snapped her fingers. "Not a problem! I got caught because I found the shortcut. Those bums busted my old Styler, so I can't use any signs, but still…Come on, yeah?"

Paddy and Summer took off for the same door Kenneth had ran down moments ago. She heard their echoing footsteps and the two clamored up the staircase, presumably toward another battle.

Chikorita rushed to Aubrey's side like a proud child towards a parent. Aubrey knelt on the floor, but fought back the urge to stroke Chikorita's leaf or otherwise touch it, in any way. There was more to this seemingly-innocent Pokemon than it had let on. She had found it in the cold, and so Aubrey had taken it in, but…but maybe there was a reason it had been left alone?

'Chikorita Bearer'. That's what Kenneth had called her…'Chikorita Bearer'. The one that bears the Chikorita.

And Gracie was one, too..?

"Aubrey!"

Paddy had ran back down the stairs. He poked his head through the door, urgency written in his cherry-red cheeks. He seemed ready to shout at her to hurry up, but at the last moment, he remembered that this was Aubrey, not some other person; he fell back into his soft demeanor with ease.

"We don't have a lot of time," he said gently.

She knew that. And to dawdle here wouldn't just put Summer and Paddy in more danger—along with herself—but it meant this Leaf person would be put in more danger. Chikorita was eager for battle…she just had to go along with it, right?

How bad could that be?

Helping people…that didn't make her a bad person.

Aubrey stood up again, fists clenched and strength renewed. She'd have to return it to Chikorita later.

"I'm coming," she said.


	11. II: The Cherry Blossoms

Cherrygrove's Winter Knights

…

- The Cherry Blossoms

Until now, Aubrey had Paddy down as the makeshift leader of the field group. Lannette had to be the head of the organization, but Paddy, it seemed, called the shots in the midst of combat. This made it quite strange that Summer had taken the lead when the trio took to the staircase.

Then Aubrey remembered, Summer is a Pokemon Ranger.

Pokemon Rangers were native only to the more northern archipelagos, which had recently created their own union and expanded the operations; as Trainers were banned from entering the regions, Pokemon Rangers worked to keep the peace from those organizations that _would_ have been stopped by the occasional hero. Aubrey never expected to run into one in her life; why would she go to Fiore, Almia, or Oblivia when everything she would ever need was only a few towns away?

The boys at school would probably kill to see a Ranger in action. More commonplace than the Covenant of Light, but far more amazing due to their unorthodox style of combat, watching a Ranger was a feat.

The door to the ninth floor burst back as Summer slammed her shoulder into it, her practiced momentum charging them forward with unstoppable speed. Aubrey and Chikorita struggled to maintain the pace, watching Summer's gold scarf flow as she ran down the narrow office corridor; only when it came time to turn did she notice that Paddy had stopped.

Aubrey would have gently tugged at his sleeve, but Summer didn't have time to waste. "Paddy!" She shouted. Her words had a sweet manner to them, as though she might be another girl-next-door type if not for the situation. "Move it! What are you doing, staring into space like an idiot?"

Paddy turned in a slow circle, staring at the ceiling.

"Paddy!"

"Quiet," he said, putting a lone finger to his thin lips. "I'm listening."

"For what?"

"Leaf's not exactly a ninja," Paddy offered under his breath. "If she's captured, we won't hear anything."

Summer folded her arms. It made a strange kind of sense. Aubrey didn't understand, and Summer could read it on the girl's face.

"What's your name?" She asked in a curiously casual way.

"I'm Aubrey," was the polite response.

"Aubrey and her Chikorita, huh?"

Aubrey bit her tongue.

"Well, I'm Summer," she said with a curt smile. "Riddle me this: do you play video games or anything? Sports, maybe?"

"I read a lot…"

Summer rolled her eyes. It was more a thoughtful gesture than a condescending one. "Hmm…that doesn't really help. See, in our ragtag bunch of misfits, Leaf's the tank."

"Tank?"

"She's who you send in to level an army, essentially. And if we don't hear her creating carnage, then she's not out doing her job, and there might be trouble."

Aubrey nodded, relieved that she could just barely follow along. "Well, what exactly would hearing her…you know, sound like?"

Summer pursed her lips—

A thunderous crash boomed from just down the corner—

Paddy traded one look to Summer. Her gentle command was law: "Let's move."

They didn't have to move far; Aubrey's feet skidded to a stop while Summer and Paddy moved forward into the middle of a warground. The would-be offices opened into a wide space, the kind in those office comedies her parents watched, with metal dividers separating workspaces. Aubrey looked around and supposed that the blasted wood, metal, and papers were what remained of the space's mundane purpose. And worse, Pokemon were scattered along in masses of bruises and bloodied limbs.

She pulled herself back and examined further. Not one, not two or even three, but a grand total of _five_ Cipher grunts surrounded the makeshift coliseum, Pokeballs drawn and knees pulsing with tension.

Summer narrowly stopped herself from running into the fray, with Paddy close behind.

"Patrat!" Aubrey heard from one of the Ciphers, "Get back in there, you coward!"

"You too, Geodude!"

From outside of Aubrey's sights, the two opponents leapt into the center arena, the stone Geodude from below and the cunning Patrat from above. If they were aimed at Chikorita, giving a command would be impossible—

Another voice her age came from the heat of combat—

"Ivysaur! Vine Whip Tornado!"

Green lines flew up from the carnage and tore through the empty space. Patrat was gone as soon as it had come, lashed by the soaring vines and sent careening into solid concrete wall. Geodude fared no better as its body was rebuffed and sent spinning, like a bowling ball, into the rubble. Aubrey covered her face as desk shards rained down in a torrent.

"Any other takers?" The voice came again. Aubrey got a better look, her eyes first landing on the young Ivysaur, with its mighty legs and the bulb on its back occupying that youthful space between bud and bloom. It retracted the vines and spun around in a slow, confident gait.

The Trainer next to it had dressed for function over form. Her hair hadn't been cut in a long time, but it didn't receive the care that Rory had obviously given her lavish mane. Her skirt was the khaki variety sold in convenience stores, worn to allow range of movement over allowing boys to ogle. The same went for her stained white tank top and tennis shoes. The only item that _maybe_ could be for fashion was the girl's white hat, as well as the matching messenger bag.

"You're all a bunch of sissies," the girl said happily. "If you'd just let me through, we'd have finished like, hours ago."

"Sorry to disappoint you, kid," Summer took the chance and ran into the fray, "But I get the feeling that kind of thing takes intelligence."

"The kind Ciphers don't have?"

"You bet'cha."

Aubrey reached for Chikorita and pulled it close to her. When she looked back up, Paddy was at her side and smiling. "I don't think you'll need to fight for a while," he said. "The Cherry Blossoms have this covered."

"Cherry Blossoms?" Aubrey could hear the capitalized letters in the name.

Pokeballs came from the rest of the other Ciphers. Recent Pokemon League regulations specified that Trainers could only legally have one Pokemon for battle; it was why working the Day Care had become a bit slow as of late. That these men were pulling out other fighters was heinous, even for them.

"Not a worry," Summer said. "And Aubrey? Yeah, Cherry Blossoms. Check us out online when you get the chance."

"Check this," A Cipher bellowed, signaling the beginning of combat.

What ensued wasn't so much a battle as it was a demonstration of skill. Ivysaur fought like an unstoppable glacier, taking minimal blows while dealing out punishment with impossible accuracy and force. Summer handled herself with the grace Ivysaur had no need for, diving over and under attacks and aiming her Styler with ease. It was almost a dance; all Aubrey needed was the music.

In a manner of seconds, five more Pokemon were out. They were worse than out; the Pokemon blinked back to life as if having woken up from a spell. Aubrey and Paddy remained perfectly still as the herd ran past them and back to freedom.

The grunts had all bunched into a group without noticing it. Summer and Leaf stared them down, neither hero showing even the possibility of mercy.

Leaf tilted her head slightly. "Do I even have to say it?"

The Grunt who had spoken before, undoubtedly the leader, threw a key card at them with a shaky hand. "T-take it," he stumbled.

Leaf strode comfortably to the key and picked it up with a lax hand, seemingly oblivious of her surroundings. And when the Grunts looked like they might muster something resembling courage…

"Boo!"

The men scattered past Aubrey and Paddy and out the way they had come, scrambling like children.

"Figures," Leaf said disappointedly. "They weren't much work anyway."

Aubrey was content to let the assembled Winter Knights finish their work and leave her alone, but that was a pipe dream. Leaf's eyes went to the meek girl holding a Chikorita, and her own mahogany eyes lit up. "Another grass Trainer, eh?"

"Aubrey, this is Leaf," Paddy waved a hand between them, then focused on Leaf. "And she's just a kid caught in the wrong place at a worse time."

"Fair enough," Leaf nodded. "A civilian. Cool to meet you, Aubster."

Aubster?

"Yeah. Got a problem with nicknames?" Leaf asked innocuously.

She shook her head. "I…no, it's okay."

Before the situation could become awkward, Summer took charge, reaching to Leaf's hand and taking the card. "This is what we came for, right? Mission accomplished?"

"Almost," the rushed voice came from Summer's Styler. "Leaf? Good to have you back. We almost needed a new girl to eat us out of house and home."

"Lovely to be back, Maggaly. Did you happen to finally shave your legs while I was out?"

Aubrey stifled a nervous giggle as Paddy winced and took the lead. "Mags, we've got the key card and we've got both Cherry Blossoms. Where do we go next?"

The keyboard clicks on the other side of the line rang out loud. "Actually, you're on the right floor for it. Just past that room you're in is the broadcast platform. The key should get you in."

Leaf raised a hand, and the group went quiet. Paddy and Summer smirked.

"What is it, Leaf?" Maggaly answered.

"Is there anyone here that's actually worth a fight? Or am I just gonna be a walking piñata for the rest of this?"

"Hate to disappoint myself, but you're not gonna get your face pounded in today. It actually looks like you beat down every guard in the building. Though if you're not out in a few minutes, that might change…"

"We'll be long gone," Paddy said definitively. He beelined for the room in question, going past the door the Grunts had been blocking, twisting the knob, and going forth with a purpose. Summer, Leaf, and Ivysaur followed close behind. Aubrey sat Chikorita back down, and the two brought up the rear of the group.

They reached the door of the hour; Aubrey recognized it by the five security bolts that the Ciphers had added to the outside, and the keycard slot just beside them. Summer handed Paddy the card, which he slid inside with a calm composure. The locks clicked back in a rhythmic procession until the door finally opened on its own, swinging inward and hanging ajar. Paddy pushed it open all the way with a controlled force.

The figure inside sent a magnum wave of terror through Aubrey's small body—

"Quilava, fire wheel!"

She had to move—

Aubrey plunged forward, knocking herself and Paddy to the carpeted floor as the ring of flames raced for them. Summer and Leaf retreated to opposite sides of the hallway, watching as the attack set the tower wall ablaze.

The entire room was only the size of Aubrey's bedroom, in her family's small house on the New Bark Town outskirts. To the far right wall was the control panel, which looked more like mission control on a spaceship than anything else. Knobs, sliders, and an army of buttons commanded a trio of screens on the wall. Strangely enough, none of it caught Aubrey's attention.

When she looked up, all Aubrey saw was Kenneth's devilish grin.

"Whoops," he teased at the budding fire. "Looks like that's coming out of my paycheck."

Paddy pushed Aubrey off of him gently, and then stood strong and unafraid. "Don't you know when to quit?" He said.

"Actually, I could say the same to you," Kenneth said. "The little bruiser back there takes down my entire troupe, the Bearer and the Ranger beat down the downstairs guards, and suddenly you're all the way up here when the building's on _fire_."

"That might be a problem, to be honest," Summer said from behind them. Aubrey didn't have to turn around; the heat spreading had her and Chikorita already sweating bullets.

"Sorry to say," Kenneth put his hands in his pockets, "But you'll have to get past me if you want to tamper with the radio signal."

Paddy raised an eyebrow. Kenneth was onto their plans. "I didn't think Ciphers could figure things like that out."

"Oh, they typically can't," he replied. Aubrey and Chikorita watched cautiously as Quilava, the sly fire-type Pokemon with snide eyes and the flames on its back to match, glided back to its master's feet. "They also typically never have their own Pokemon. They don't understand how Pokemon and humans can be friends, so how could they?

"And with all of this awesome take-over-the-city stuff, I figured, we can't let Shadow Pokemon have all the fun, right?" Kenneth licked one of his pointed canine teeth.

Paddy had become a statue, gears quickly moving as he assessed the situation. He wasn't the leader; he was the battle strategist. Summer and Leaf were only a few feet away, but he'd need them between himself and Kenneth in order to do anything.

There was one answer. His smoldering stare darted down to Aubrey. Already caught up in the tension and excitement, wasn't going to stall the moment this time. She knew a handful of commands, and hoped it was enough—

Her morals were on the backburner, replaced by trust for these strangers—

"Chikorita? Tackle for me!"

Chikorita responded like a soldier, leaping upward and diving for Quilava—

Vine whips zipped out from behind it, gripping the blazing opponent and dragging it out into the hallway. Ivysaur slammed it into the ground, singing the carpet and catapulting stone into the air. As it scrambled to its feet, Quilava found itself sandwiched between Ivysaur, already poised for combat, and Summer, her Styler on and ready.

Kenneth groaned.

As Chikorita scrambled back to Aubrey's side, the girl realized why he was the most frightening boy she had ever met, and the most dangerous man she had ever known. Aubrey had turned away her morals and unthinkingly ordered an innocent to attack a Pokemon that could have burnt it to a crisp, in the name of getting the five of them out of a flaming building with their lives. Kenneth's Pokemon was about to face off with two experienced warriors, all Paddy had to do was tamper with the radio controls before them…

And Kenneth simply groaned. For Aubrey, this was the adventure of a lifetime. For Kenneth, it was just an _annoyance_.

To drive it home, Kenneth looked at Paddy, then at his Quilava's unfortunate situation…and little Aubrey didn't even register. He walked past Paddy with the gait of a predator approaching its wounded dinner.

When Paddy remained motionless, Kenneth clicked his tongue. "What are you waiting for? I'm _letting_ you go for the controls."

Paddy moved hesitantly for the control panel—

"You've got thirty seconds," Kenneth sang. "That's how long this battle will take."

Kenneth and Quilava stood in the doorway, Summer and Leaf's Ivysaur blocking the hallway. The flames had spread across the floor and were undoubtedly spreading to other levels…

"Quilava?"

Summer and Leaf braced themselves for battle—

"Let's stretch our legs for a bit."


End file.
